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Discourses  and  Essays 


BY 

JOHN  AYSCOUGH 

Author  of  "Mezzogiorno,"  "Hurdcott,"  etc. 


B.  HERDER   BOOK   CO. 
17  South  Broadway,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

AND 

60  Great  Russell  St.,  London,  W.  C. 

1922 


NIHIL  OB  ST  AT 

Sti.  Ludovici,  die  13.  Julii,  1922. 

F.  G.  Holweck, 

Censor  Librorum 


IMPRIMATUR 

Sti.  Ludovici,  die  //.  Julii,  ig22. 

'i'Joanncs  J.  Glennon, 
Archiepiscopus 

Sti.  Ludovici 


Copyright,  1922, 

by 

B.  Herder  Book  Co. 

All  rights  reserved 
Printed  in  U.  S.  A. 


This  little  book  is  dedicated 

to 

THE  VERY  REV.  JOHN  CAVANAUGH,  D.D., 

of  the 

Society  of  the  Holy  Cross 


836313 


CONTENTS 

PASS 

The  Church  and  Vanity  Fair i 

Progress  and  Perfection 14 

Of  Preaching  and  Practice 32 

Sacraments  and  Spectacles 51 

Miracles  "Or  Such-like  Fooleries"    ....  62 

Of  Majorities 69 

Of  Youth  and  Emotion 75 

Of  Emotion  and  Common-sense 80 

Psalms  or  Poorer  Stuff 85 

Self  and   Self-sacrifice 91 

The  Golden  Road 98 

Continuity  versus  Identity 105 

The  Wind  and  the  Shorn  Lamb no 

Continuity  and  Cardinals 117 

Pole,  Cranmer,  and  Continuity 123 

The  Continuity  Tribute 128 

Apostolic  Witness 134 

In  Excuse  of  Silence 140 

Of  Camel  Swallowing 175 

Taste  and  Tolerance  . .  182 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Another  Tolerance 198 

Two  Duties 211 

CHRISTMAS  AND  NEW  YEAR 

Pax 152 

Pagan   Yule 158 

Once  Again 163 

Goodbye  and  Welcome 168 


THE  CHURCH  AND  VANITY  FAIR 

ELSEWHERE  we  have  spoken  of  the  charge 
brought  against  the  Church,  not  by  her 
more  reputable  opponents,  of  her  inferior 
morahty.  We  venture  to  believe  that  no  single  hu- 
man being  who  ever  considered  her  claims,  with  the 
faintest  genuine  intention  of  submitting  to  her, 
should  he  find  those  claims  to  rest  on  justice  and 
right  reason,  has  ever  been  decided  against  submis- 
sion by  a  frank  conviction  that  in  becoming  a  Cath- 
olic he  would  be  accepting  a  lower  rule  of  ethics. 

No  student  of  her  history  and  of  that  of  the 
world,  we  are  firmly  convinced,  has  ever  failed  to 
arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  her  stand  has  consis- 
tently been  on  the  side  of  good.  Her  vicissitudes 
have  been  great,  her  trials  very  many;  and  they 
would  have  been  much  less  had  she  held  the  easy 
principles,  the  convenient  laxity,  the  accommodating 
readiness  to  sacrifice  justice  for  temporal,  or  selfish, 
advantage  with  which  the  ignorant  and  the  vulgar- 
witted  have  credited  her. 

In  history  she  is  seen,  time  and  again,  at  variance 
with  the  mighty.  She  might  have  lived  more 
pleasantly  at  ease  had  she  been  willing  to  snatch  at 
suggested  compromises,  to  barter  unchanging  rules 
of  right   for   comfortable   expedients;   to   condone 

1 


2  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

robberies  and  take  a  present  for  herself;  to  wink  at 
evil  in  high  places  and  abstain  from  visiting  upon  the 
powerful  the  same  censures  into  which  the  meanest 
of  her  children  would  have  fallen  who  had  attempted 
similar  infractions  of  the  law  of  God.  It  is  not  be- 
cause she  has  been  lax  that  she  has  stirred  up  against 
herself  potent  adversaries,  at  one  period  or  another, 
in  every  country  of  Christendom,  but  precisely  be- 
cause she  would  hold  no  treaty  with  laxity  though 
the  favour  of  emperors  or  kings  might  have  been 
the  reward  of  her  compliance. 

Of  all  this  the  candid  and  not  lazy  student  be- 
comes fully  aware.  The  libellers  of  the  Church's 
moral  rectitude  are  not  the  learned,  and  the  sincere, 
nor  the  clearminded,  but  the  shallow  and  ignorant, 
the  malignant,  and  they  who  invert  the  quality  of 
charity  that  thinketh  no  evil  and  rejoiceth  not  in 
iniquity.  There  is  no  more  practical  proof  of  fond- 
ness for  anything  than  being  willing  to  pay  for  it, 
and  it  is  to  hear  of  iniquity  that  they  pay  who  go  re" 
joicingly  to  the  regale  on  the  "experiences"  of  es- 
caped monks  and  escaped  nuns. 

But  that  word  of  charity  reminds  Inevitably  of  a 
special  difference  between  the  Church's  attitude  to- 
wards evil  and  that  of  the  un-Catholic  world.  To- 
wards unrepentant  sin  the  Church  holds  herself  rig- 
idly :  till  the  evil  thing  be  put  away  she  shuts  up  her 
treasures,  and  lifts  an  ever-threatening  hand  of 
warning.  No  sacrament  of  hers  can  avail  the  im- 
penitent; no  reconciliation  can  be  held  with  him. 
No  lapse  of  time  can  purge  his  fault  while  to  that 


THE  CHURCH  AND  VANITY  FAIR  3 

fault  he  cleaves  lovingly  or  obstinately,  nor  death  it- 
self if  death  shall  have  brought  no  penitence.  She 
does  not  judge  the  dead;  vengeance  is  not  her's  but 
God's;  but  neither  does  she  presume  to  pronounce 
sentence  of  acquittal  simply  because  death  has  inter- 
vened; death  may  have  been,  for  all  she  can  see,  but 
the  final  hopeless  seal  on  a  life-long  evil  compact. 
Him  who  has  died  under  every  outward  presump- 
tion of  impenitence  she  does  not  declare  absolved  by 
death;  he  has  passed  beyond  her  jurisdiction  and,  in 
awe,  to  God's  Omniscience  she  leaves  him. 

But  if  he  arise  from  the  foul  meal  of  swinish 
husks,  and  from  the  alien  land  where  he  has  dwelt 
in  folly,  turn  his  eyes  homeward,  wistfully,  then  does 
she  run  to  meet  him.  Afar  off  she  yearns  to  him, 
and  midway  she  encounters  him  with  kindest  em- 
bracing; and,  at  his  word  of  penitence,  the  golden 
chain  of  love  is  for  his  neck,  the  clean  garment  of 
reconciliation  is  for  his  sin-worn  frame.  She  calls 
him  to  his  father's  table,  and  of  all  his  wantoi?  past 
there  is  no  chatter  heard,  she  makes  no  gibe  and 
will  hear  none;  if  an  elder  son  would  cavil  at  her 
kindness  she  stills  him  with  a  gentle  reproof:  "Son, 
thou  hast  been  always  with  me.  This  my  brother, 
was  lost  and  is  found,"  His  wicked  past  is  dead; 
let  the  dead  bury  their  dead.  She  bids  him  look 
forward;  after  the  first  sorrowful  tears  for  the 
deeds  of  exile  are  shed  he  is  to  bring  forth  fruit 
meet  for  repentance,  and  must  make  haste  to  sow 
for  a  better  harvest,  and  to  that  end  labour;  it  is 
not   she   that  will   hold   him   with    hopeless    face 


4  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

pressed  down  into  the  old  mire,  nor  she  that  dubs 
him  Prodigal  returned,  but  the  common,  harsh 
label. 

And  this  is  what  the  un-Catholic  world,  that  goes 
sinning  smugly  on,  cannot  away  with.  It  is  not 
hard  on  unrepentant  sin.  It  knows  of  it,  and  nud- 
ges a  little  and  smiles  a  good  deal,  and  winks 
humanly,  and  is  not  very  angry  nor  greatly  scandal- 
ised. It  has  a  kindness  for  wild  oats,  and  does  not 
perceive  them  to  be  much  out  of  season,  though 
planted  by  quite  elderly  sowers.  It  dines  with  the 
sower  and  drinks  his  wine,  and  avails  itself  of  the 
pleasant  crumbs  of  his  wealth,  though  he  be  sowing 
still  after  fifty  seasons — or  she,  for  that  matter. 
He  is  a  good  fellow,  or  she  is  a  "good  sort."  That 
he,  or  she,  may  be  outraging  God  Is  nothing  to  It; 
God  is  nothing  to  It  either.  The  most  elderly  wild- 
oats  need  be  no  offence  against  society.  There  be 
gentlemanly  oats,  and  lady-like,  though  stale  and 
stinking,  foul  and  fetid,  rotten  and  rot-breeding; 
oats  that  help  the  prostitute  to  hell  and  drag 
the  well-bred,  well-washed  adulteress  thither,  but 
conventional,  look  you,  and,  with  luck,  decently 
glossed — or  at  all  events  indecently.  It  is  all  part 
of  the  show:  a  recognised  department  in  Vanity 
Fair. 

It  is  not  to  the  unrepentant  that  the  jostlers  in  the 
Fair  are  austere,  but  to  the  repentant.  The  repent- 
ant have  left  it,  and  the  tender  mercies  of  the  un- 
godly are  no  more  for  them.  They  are  deserters 
and  are  to  be  shot  down :  their  backs  are  turned,  and 


THE  CHURCH  AND  VANITY  FAIR  5 

into  them  any  knife  may  be  thrust.  It  is  when  a 
guilty  wretch  has  ceased  to  be  guilty  that  Vanity 
Fair  begins  to  cry  out  upon  him;  it  is  when  God 
has  pardoned  that  the  folk  in  the  Fair  discover  him 
to  be  unpardonable.  So  long  as  he  sticks  to  the 
Fair  it  is  mean  and  unfriendly  to  note  that  he  is  mis- 
behaving: when  he  gives  over  misbehaving  then 
is  it  time  to  proclaim  loudly  all  he  has  done.  What 
sinless  God  has  forgiven  none  of  these  fellows, 
stuck  fast  in  sin  still,  will  forgive,  nor  will  the 
women  of  the  Fair.  St.  Augustine  would  have  been 
well  received  in  it  in  his  worst  days;  would  he  have 
been  received  there  at  all  had  he  shown  himself  in 
it  when  he  had  been  long  a  saint?  Would  St.  Mary 
Magdalene?  Would  any  penitent?  The  repent- 
ant sinner  may  have  been  leading  an  exemplary  life 
for  years,  but  every  bull  in  it  will  gore  him,  every 
goat  push  and  butt,  every  filthy  monkey  gibber  and 
mouth — because  he  is  penitent. 

Is  this  simply  hypocrisy  in  the  people  of  the  Fair? 
They  grin  at  the  Church  and  throw  it  against  her 
that  she  will  whitewash  any  scamp  who  comes  to 
her;  do  they  believe  that  she  will  do  this  for  the 
unrepentant  sinner?  Not  they.  Nor  is  the  outcry 
they  raise  against  her  simply  hypocrisy:  it  is  more. 
In  every  reprobate  reclaimed  by  the  Church  they  per- 
ceive a  loss  to  the  Fair,  a  captive  from  their  own 
ranks.  That  is  why  they  are  bitter  and  scornful 
against  her  for  doing  just  what  God  does.  She  is 
the  servant,  and  the  servant  is  not  to  set  herself 
above  her  Master,  it  is  enough  that  she  be  as  her 


6  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

Master:  what  He  has  forgiven  she  must  forgive, 
what  He  has  cleansed  she  is  not  to  call  unclean  still. 

We  said  at  the  beginning  of  this  paper  that  no 
one  was  ever  deterred  from  becoming  a  Catholic  by 
an  honest  conviction  that  to  do  so  would  imply  the 
acceptance  of  a  lower  moral  standard;  but  the  truth 
is  that  many  hold  back  from  entering  the  Church 
because  they  plainly  recognise  that  to  submit  to  her 
would  involve  the  acceptance  of  a  moral  standard 
inconveniently  high.  To  many  the  idea  of  joining 
the  Church  has  never  occurred  at  all:  the  whole 
question  of  religion  is  tedious  to  them.  To  some 
the  idea  has  occurred,  but  the  cost  of  following  it 
up  is  too  heavy;  it  is  not  merely  that  there  may  be, 
as  there  often  is,  some  material  loss  to  face:  the  loss 
they  cannot  face  is  the  loss  of  liberty  to  lead  a  life 
of  laxity.  They  perceive  clearly  that  on  Catholics 
is  laid  the  obligation  of  a  rule  of  conduct  to  which 
they  would  grudge  obedience.  Far  from  believ- 
ing that  the  practice  of  the  confessional  is  an  in- 
stance of  Cathohc  corruption,  a  pleasant  way  of 
compounding  with  sin,  a  comfortable  device  for  en- 
abling folk  to  live  loosely  and  yet  with  easy  con- 
science, they  are  strongly  aware  that  to  accept  the 
obligation  of  the  confessional  means  a  definite  rup- 
ture with  the  kind  of  life  they  are  leading,  and 
from  which  they  are  unprepared  to  break  off,  and 
that  in  the  confessional  is  only  applied  to  actual 
conduct  the  Church's  theoretic  rule  of  ethics. 

I  believe  this  to  be  the  real  explanation  of  many 
half-promised  conversions  that  have  never  fulfilled 


THE  CHURCH  AND  VANITY  FAIR  7 

themselves.  It  is  not  the  Church's  moral  laxity 
that  holds  people  off,  but  her  moral  austerity. 
Nor  was  it  corruption  in  religious  houses  that  made 
the  sycophants  of  Henry  VIII  glad  to  see  them 
destroyed;  those  who  had  no  material  profit  to 
make  out  of  their  suppression  (and  wc  may  be  sure 
that  many  were  disappointed  of  such  profit,  as 
many  made  it)  were  well  pleased  to  be  relieved  of 
the  spectacle  of  the  Church's  old  counsels  of  per- 
fection in  daily  practice.  And  what  is  true  of  the 
sixteenth  century  is  equally  true  of  the  eighteenth, 
the  nineteenth,  and  the  twentieth:  the  wholesale 
destruction  of  religious  houses  is  due  in  part  to  the 
desire  for  spoliation,  but  in  part  also  to  the  fact 
that  nothing  Is  more  repugnant  to  those  who  would 
destroy  both  Christ  and  His  law  than  being  com- 
pelled to  see  His  law  illustrated  in  itsi  most  perfect 
expression. 

Those  countries  which  have  most  entirely  cast  off 
the  bit  and  bridle  of  the  Church  rejoice  in  a  free- 
dom of  which  they  are  fully  aware:  the  freedom 
to  do  what  they  like.  For  centuries  there  has  been 
talk  of  the  intellectual  freedom  achieved  by  the  Ref- 
ormation; its  real  asset,  endearing  it  to  millions  of 
wayward  human  beings,  is  the  moral  freedom  it 
suggests.  For  to  the  bulk  of  mankind  the  absence 
of  law  appears  freedom;  it  is  only  a  minority  that 
has  ever  willingly  recognised  that  in  the  most  per- 
fect law  is  the  most  perfect  freedom.  In  England 
the  course  of  procedure  has  been  this:  at  first  the 
Reformation  cried  to  the  people,  "To  God  only  are 


8  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

you  answerable:  no  Pope  shall  enslave  your  con- 
science. From  him  we  emancipate  you,  and  your 
rule  of  right  shall  henceforth  be  the  voice  of  God 
alone  speaking  to  your  heart."  And  the  ultimate 
fruit  of  this  axiom  of  private  judgment  has  been  the 
refusal  to  teach  God  to  the  people,  so  that  they  are 
bred  up  to  know  neither  Him  nor  His  law,  and  the 
voice  of  conscience.  Is  the  urging  of  the  personal  in- 
clination of  each  Individual. 

Can  anybody  who  knows  Sweden  or  Norway,  or 
Holland  or  Protestant  Germany,  believe  that  what 
the  peoples  of  those  countries  dread  Is  the  intellect- 
ual slavery  of  Catholicism?  What  they  are  shy  of 
Is  the  restraint  on  conduct  that  was  removed  by  the 
happy  thought  of  private  judgment. 

Ask  any  straightforward  young  scapegrace  and 
he  will  confess  that  there  Is  a  delightful  unsuper- 
naturalness  about  the  atmosphere  of  a  thoroughly 
non-Catholic  country  and  society:  a  cosy  absence  of 
any  arriere  pensee  of  the  old  bothersome  Ten  Com- 
mandments, a  most  agreeable  sense  of  being  entirely 
your  own  master  without  any  other  master  that 
matters  on  earth  or  above  it.  And,  with  equal  in- 
genuousness, he  will  complain  that  a  thoroughly 
Catholic  society  is  tiresome  to  live  In;  Catholics  are 
not,  he  admits,  "a  bad  sort";  but  the  more  Catholic 
they  are,  the  more  awkward  is  it  for  a  fellow  who 
likes  to  take  what's  going  to  be  jolly,  and  not  to  fuss 
about  the  world  to  come.  If  a  fellow  were  to  be 
ill,  really  ill,  and  rather  uncertain  of  recovery,  a 
typically  Catholic  household  would  not,  he  avows, 


THE  CHURCH  AND  VANITY  FAIR  9 

be  a  bad  place  for  it — it  happened  once  to  himself, 
and  there  was  a  something  comfortable  about  it. 
But  afterwards — 

The  devil  was  ill:  the  devil  a  saint  would  be. 
The  devil  got  well :  the  devil  a  saint  was  he. 

When  a  fellow  has  quite  recovered,  and  the  fears 
of  death  are  gone  by,  and  he  is  strong  enough  to  be 
himself  again — why,  then,  the  typical  Catholic 
household  is  not  so  much  the  thing.  There's  too 
much  of  the  world  to  come  about  it,  too  much  no- 
tion of  putting  good  resolutions  in  practice:  as  if 
religion  was  not,  after  all,  an  accessory  of  the  sick- 
room, as  if  it  were  a  matter  of  common  life  and 
five-and-twenty.  That's  where  the  out-and-out 
Catholics  make  their  little  mistake.  The  sort  of 
theories  everyone  has  a  nodding  acquaintance  with 
as  theories  they  take  au  pied  de  la  lettre  and  carry 
about  with  them  as  a  fellow  does  his  ribs — inside 
but    indubitable    and    of    week-a-day    significance. 

He  does  not  wish  to  imply  that  they  jaiv  a  lot, 
rather  the  contrary;  but  they  take  for  granted  that 
admitted  principles  are  things  to  act  on.  That's  it. 
Now  his  own  principles  are  first-rate,  but  even  the 
best  principles  can  be  de  trop  if  you  let  'em;  the 
thing  is  to  keep  up  sides  with  them,  and  that's  what 
these  thoroughgoing  Catholics  can't  seem  to  man- 
age: their  principles  have  them  by  the  nose  all  the 
time.  Ill  or  well  makes  no  odds;  they  aren't,  not 
to  say,  gloomy  even  when  a  fellow  is  pretty  bad  and 
wondering  where  he'll  be  to-morrow;  no,  grave  and 


lo  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

awfully  kind-hearted,  but  not  solemn,  not  too  d — d 
solemn  like  some  are.  Even  the  priest  who  looked 
in  and  knew  a  fellow  was  a  heretic,  had  a  bit  of  a 
joke  for  him,  and  told  him  to  buck-up.  Yes,  he  did; 
not  a  bit  in  your  regulation  death-bed  manner. 
"Buck-up"  was  the  word.  Still  they  seem  to  sup- 
pose that  getting  well  makes  no  difference;  and 
what  was  true  at  your  worst  is  true  still. 

So  our  candid  young  scapegrace. 

But  there  are  Catholic  hous'eholds  which  are  not 
typically  Catholic;  which  our  young  friend  would 
readily  admit  were  just  like  any  other  households; 
where  you  might  easily  forget  -that  your  enter- 
tainers were  Catholics  at  all.  In  them  there  is  none 
of  the  supernaturalness  so  disconcerting  in  unmis- 
takably Catholic  circles. 

We  do  not  cite  our  candid  friend  as  an  expert 
judge  of  the  supernatural,  but  merely  as  an  inde- 
pendent witness  to  certain  plain  facts  concerning 
which  he  is  without  prejudice.  He  belongs  not  to 
us  but  to  the  Fair,  and  his  tastes  are  of  it ;  but  he  has 
a  perfect  instinct  as  to  what  does  belong  to  it,  and 
he  knows  accurately  what  sort  of  people  are  in  it, 
and  what  are  not.  His  witness  is  good  so  far — 
that  it  is  not  in  typically  Catholic  circles  that  a  com- 
fortable laxity  is  to  be  found,  but  in  circles  that  are 
not  Catholic  at  all,  or  are  so  only  in  name. 
Whereas,  if  the  accusation  of  the  Church's  enemies 
were  true,  and  the  Church  itself  were  lax,  it  would  be 
precisely  among  Catholics  who  most  typically  rep- 
resent her,  and  most  accurately  reflect  her  distinctive 


THE  CHURCH  AND  VANITY  FAIR.        u 

spirit,  that  laxity  of  conduct  and  shallowness  of  prin- 
ciple would  be  found. 

And  this  is  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter: 
the  Church  as  she  shows  herself  in  a  history  of 
nearly  two  thousand  years,  has  stood  immovably 
for  a  law  that  she  cannot  change  nor  compromise, 
because  it  is  not  a  human  specific  but  a  Divine  reve- 
lation; at  no  cost  of  loss  or  danger  to  herself  can 
she,  or  does  she,  admit  modifications  of  that  law, 
whether  in  dealing  publicly  with  the  States  and  their 
rulers,  or  privately  with  individuals  in  the  con- 
fessional. Where  there  is  transgression  of  the  law 
she  can  only  admit  to  reconciliation  on  repentance 
and  amendment,  but  where  there  is  repentance  she 
is  as  ready  to  forgive  as  God  Himself,  and,  like 
Him,  will  break  no  bruised  reed,  will  not  remember 
transgression  for  ever.  She  will  make  no  demand 
of  fallen  man  that  He  does  not  make.  She  admits 
them  who  have  been  wicked  to  her  table,  and  is  con- 
tent, as  He  was,  to  be  fleered  at  as  a  friend  of  pub- 
licans and  sinners.  Where  He  whispers  of  hope 
she  will  not  force  those  who  have  been  shamed  to 
despair.  That  pitiless  function  she  leaves  to  the 
world,  that  has  as  much  pity  now  as  it  had  in  Jewry 
when  Christ  walked  there. 

Men,  not  angels,  are  her  charge,  and  she  remem- 
bers we  are  dust;  not  with  loud  yells,  vindictive,  does 
she  hound  the  fallen  to  utter  destruction,  but  out  of 
sinners  she  fashions  saints.  The  human  dust,  in  her 
hands,  is  built  up  into  a  man  reflecting  not  the  first 
Adam  but  the  second.     And  that  is  her  real  offence 


12  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

against  the  world :  not  that  she  would  malce  sinners 
of  men,  but  saints;  for  it  is  an  undying  reproach  to 
the  world  that  saints  are  possible  in  it.  The  exist- 
ence of  saints  is  an  insult  to  a  world  that  would  make 
Christ's  law  an  allegory  or  a  dream;  and  the 
Church,  that  makes  saints  out  of  common,  fallen 
men,  is  the  arch-offender.  So  they  must  call  her 
liar  and  hypocrite — since  they  would  have  nothing 
genuine  and  sincere  but  corruption,  nothing  re.al  but 
evil.  The  Church  is  reviled  and  miscalled  because 
she  affirms  God's  unchanging  law  to  be  always  in 
possession,  and  will  not  confess  that  any  modern 
change  can  make  it  obsolete  or  impracticable. 
Tender  and  full  of  encouragement,  as  Christ  was 
Himself,  to  the  imperfect,  she  insists  on  the  possibil- 
ity of  His  own  counsels  of  perfection,  and  will  not 
have  them  explained  away,  or  ruled  out  of  date. 
Therein  lies  the  world's  grievance  against  her:  if 
she  would  indeed  teach  men  that  every  demand  of 
God  can  be  evaded,  every  rule  of  Christian  ethic  be 
dispensed,  and  that  Mammon  and  God  can  be  twin 
masters,  then  would  the  world  and  Mammon  love 
her  well:  what  an  ally  she  would  bel  How  soon 
would  all  the  race  of  man  be  Satan's,  if  only  the 
Church  would  be  what  her  enemies  pretend  to 
thi'nk  she  is!  If  Giant  Pope  really  ruled  in  Vanity 
Fair  how  light-hearted  would  the  folk  in  the  Fair 
be;  how  free  from  chill  misgiving — what  com- 
plaisant, amenable  children  of  his  they  would  all  be- 
come. 

Does  any  bad  Catholic  pretend  that  he  is  bad 


THE  CHURCH  AND  VANITY  FAIR         13 

by  connlv^ance  of  the  Church?  If  he  be  leading  a 
life  immoral,  worldly,  irreligious,  in  oblividn  of 
God's  law,  selfish,  sensual,  of  mean  ideals  and  hell- 
ward  purposes,  does  he  whisper  to  any  traducer  of 
the  Church  that  it  is  all  with  her  comfortable  per- 
mission? That  such  an  ecclesiastical  custom  covers 
his  case,  that  such  a  Pope's  decision  allows  his 
licence,  or  that  this  or  that  priest  assured  him,  in  the 
privacy  of  the  confessional,  that  he  had  nothing  to 
fear?  That,  so  long  as  he  did  what  Church  and 
Pope  and  priest  told  him,  he  need  not  worry  about 
what  God  has  told  us  all?  Is  there  any  liar  bold 
enough  to  pretend  that  any  wretched  Catholic  has 
made  this  avowal,  and  that  such  Catholi.cs  are  typ- 
ical of  the  Church? 

That  there  are  bad  Catholics  we  know  as  well  as 
we  know  that,  out  of  the  twelve  the  Master  chose 
from  the  whole  human  race  to  be  His  disciples,  one 
was  a  devil.  But  can  even  they  themselves,  dearly 
as  they,  and  all  of  us,  would  love  to  make  false  ex- 
cuse, pretend  that  their  badness  is  due  to  the  Church, 
and  not  in  spite  of  her?  Are  they  her  docile  chil- 
dren or  her  rebels?  Was  the  apostasy  of  Judas 
Christ's  fault?  Was  David  called  the  man  after 
God's  own  heart  because  he  was  an  adulterer,  and 
murdered  Urias?  Does  all  this  sound  too  hotly? 
I  suppose  an  honest  man  is  bound  to  keep  quite  cool 
when  he  hears  his  mother  dubbed  harlot. 


PROGRESS  AND  PERFECTION 

DIFFERENT  sorts  of  acQusations  are 
thrown  at  the  Catholic  Church  by  differ- 
ent sorts  of  people;  and  the  accusations 
of  one  age  are  not  always  identical  with  those  of 
another.  Thus,  many  of  the  calumnies  of  old- 
fashioned  Protestantism  against  Catholicity  are  no 
longer  much  attended  to  by  a  society  that  has  es- 
caped almost  as  far  from  the  Protestant  stand- 
point as  it  has  from  the  Catholic:  that  the  old  re- 
ligion of  Christendom  is  honeycombed  with  super- 
stition that  society  is  prepared  to  believe  without 
subjecting  itself  to  the  ennui  of  proof;  but  it  does 
not  think  the  point  very  interesting  or  important, 
for,  having  made  up  what  it  is  pleased  to  call  its 
mind  that  all  Christianity  is  a  moribund,  if  not  de- 
funct, superstition,  it  hardly  finds  it  worth  while  to 
consider  closely  invidious  comparisons  between  one 
form  of  the  superstition  and  another.  It  may,  in- 
deed, and  often  does,  take  up  the  position  that  if 
people  are  still  quaint  enough  to  go  on  believing  In  a 
religion  that  teaches  the  Incarnation  of  God,  the 
Virginal  Birth  and  the  Resurrection  of  Christ,  they 
may  as  well  go  the  whole  hog,  and  believe  all  that 
the  Catholic  Church  teaches;  and  they  perceive  a 
greater  picturesqueness  in  the  unmitigated  ancient 

14 


PROGRESS  AND  PERFECTION  15 

faith  of  Rome  than  in  the  half-hearted  compromise 
of  a  Protestantism  that  accepts  what  they  consider 
impossibilities  while  jibbing  at  miracles,  or  accepts 
miracles  up  to  a  certain  date,  and  angrily  discards 
as  impostures  all  similar  phenomena  subsequent  to 
the  period  when  decent,  God-fearing  Protestant 
miracles  thought  it  time  to  stop  taking  place. 

This  attitude  is  on  the  increase  among  non-be- 
lievers who  are  free  from  violent  rancours  against 
supernatural  religion,  and  content  themselves  with 
a  placid  surprise  that  so  primitive  a  foible  should 
survfve  In  any  shape;  obsolete  survivals  are  not, 
they  admit,  uninteresting;  and  the  more  antique  the 
more  curious  are  such  reminders  of  a  state  of  things 
which  these  superior  persons  imagine  to  have 
passed  away  for  ever. 

The  attitude  is  not  quite  so  respectful  as  it  is 
sometimes  assumed  by  the  more  simple-minded 
Catholic  to  be;  he  is  apt  to  imagine  thaf  it  implies 
a  sort  of  involuntary  tribute  to  the  Church,  as 
though  those  who  adopt  it  were  confessing  that, 
after  all,  there  was  something  in  her  that  extorted 
their  admiration  and  compelled  their  respect.  The 
admiration,  when  there  is  any,  is  only  what  an 
aesthetic  socialist  might  feel  for  the  fine  ruins  of  a 
feudal  stronghold;  the  respect  not  much  deeper  than 
a  young  graduate  of  London,  who  has  just  taken 
honours  in  natural  science,  may  feel  called  upon  to 
render  to  a  septuagenarian  Oxford  don  still  irritat- 
ing himself  over  a  disputed  reading  in  Theocritus. 
It  is  not  necessarily  a  proof  of  a  wider  mind,  and 


i6  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

may  only  evince  a  shallower  feeling;  it  certainly 
need  not  be  taken  as  a  sign  of  readiness  to  consider 
the  Church's  claims  on  their  merits,  but  may  merely 
express  the  conviction  that  such  questions  are  settled 
and  done  for — "Quaestio  finita  est,  Romana  dam- 
nata  est." 

Such  critics,  then,  as  these  will  never  fatigue 
themselves  by  loud  shoutings  of  the  sort  of  hoary 
accusation  dear  to  the  true  Protestant  heart:  a 
pother  about  sacraments  or  indulgences,  purgatory 
and  saints,  seems  to  them  a  storm  in  a  tea-cup,  and 
they  are  sure  the  tea-cup  itself  is  cracked  and  cannot 
hold  even  the  most  mildly  agitated  milk  and  water. 
And  Gallio  is  apt  to  be  a  smooth-mannered  fellow. 
He  does  not  noisily  revile,  nor  call  names  that  are 
universally  felt  to  be  insulting.  To  scream  and 
vituperate  is  vulgar,  and  degrades  the  accuser.  He 
does  not  run  amuck  against  wind  mills.  That  is 
foolish.  But  he  accuses,  too,  though  in  the  meas- 
ured tone  of  dispassionate,  because  impregnable, 
criticism. 

Interesting  as  the  venerable  institution  of  Cath- 
olicity is,  striking  as  her  objective  personality  un- 
doubtedly remains,  grandiose  as  have  been  the  spec- 
tacles with  which  she  has  decorated  the  stage  of  his- 
tory, noble  as  have  been  many  of  her  aims — far  be- 
fore the  times  as  some  of  them  clearly  were — ex- 
alted as  was  the  mission  she  set  herself,  great  as 
was  the  part  she  once  played  in  civilising  the  savage 
nations  that  were  too  virile  to  assimilate  so  effete  a 
civilisation  as  that  of  the  Roman  Empire,  sick  and 


PROGRESS  AND  PERFECTION  17 

dying,  fine  as  were  the  ideals  she  displayed  to  man- 
kind in  comparison  with  any  that  had  been  pro- 
mulgated before  her  time,  she  is,  alasl  an  enemy  to 
Progress.  She  is  the  latter-day  Canute,  with  hei 
throne  upon  the  shore  of  time,  opposed  to  the  on- 
rush of  a  tide  inexorably  advancing  to  submerge 
it;  but,  unlike  Canute,  forbidding  its  advance  with 
a  fatuous  sincere  desire  of  being  obeyed.  Her 
throne,  indeed,  was  planted,  as  she  avers,  not  upon 
the  low  and  shifting  sand,  but  upon  a  rock — the  in- 
tensely significant,  picturesque  Peter-rock;  but  she  is 
unable  to  perceive  that  the  rock  itself  (owing  to 
the  erosion  of  time)  is  now  below  high-water  mark, 
and  if  she  persists  in  remaining  in  her  ancient  seat 
she  must  find  herself  overwhelmed.  They  profess 
a  half-regret:  if  only  she  would  get  up  and  run  in- 
land, leaving  all  her  impedimenta  behind — her  dog- 
mas and  her  weird  claims,  her  fantastic  fooleries, 
that  did  well  enough  for  a  world  in  its  fairy-story 
stage,  her  baubles  that  pleased  children  who  had  not 
got  beyond  coral-mumbling — she  might  fit  herself  in 
with  meek  usefulness  to  some  subordinate  part  in  a 
society  that  has  still  a  good  many  poor  members. 
What  could  she  do  better  than  lay  aside  her  old 
arrogant  part  of  heaven-sent  teacher,  and  assume 
the  eminently  practical  function  of  State-provided 
relieving  ofl^cer?  She  has,  they  readily  concede,  "a 
way  wid  her,"  and  has  seemed  to  understand  how 
to  deal  with  pauperism  better  than  her  more  en- 
lighted  successors,  the  administrators  of  poor  laws. 
When  she  ruled  the  roost  poverty  was  not  so  crim- 


i8  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

inal  nor  so  menacing  as  it  is  latterly  become.  Let 
her  lay  down  her  triple  crown  and  take  office  under 
the  beneficent  masters  who  have  paternally  cut  her 
throat,  and  a  wide  sphere,  unversed  by  tedious 
puerilities  of  belief,  will  be  opened  for  her  grand- 
motherly (for  she  is  very  old)  and  innocuous  good 
nature. 

But  she  will  not:  so  she  is  an  enemy  to  Progress. 
She  sticks  to  her  old  claims,  and  clanks  her  old 
chains,  like  the  bothersome  ghost  she  is — a  ghost 
with  an  immense  body,  which  makes  her  abnormal 
and  inexcusable  even  among  ghosts.  She  is  dead 
and  will  not  be  buried,  but  stalks  about  galvanically, 
like  a  duck  whose  head  was  of  so  little  account  that 
she  cannot  realise  it  has  been  cut  off.  The  Papacy 
is  her  head,  and  it  was  cut  off  in  1870,  not  to  tire 
oneself  with  earlier  decapitations.  Her  behaviour 
is  more  scandalous  than  the  duck's,  for  the  body  ran 
back  to  the  head,  and  refused  to  admit  the  fact  of 
decapitation,  maintaining  the  same  phenomena  of 
life  as  if  no  operation  at  all  had  taken  place.  That 
is  the  worst  of  the  Catholic  Church,  it  is  a  phenom- 
enon, and  persists  in  a  world  that  can  only  away  with 
phenomena  that  are  natural  or  preternatural,  and 
finds  its  delicacy  outraged  by  the  naked  supernat- 
ural. The  whole  spirit  of  the  age  is  progressive, 
and  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  only  considerable  in- 
stitution that  refuses  to  take  its  colour  from  the 
age,  adopt  the  current  axioms,  discarding  her  own, 
and  proclaim  as  her  objects  those  which  the  rest  of 


PROGRESS  AND  PERFECTION  19 

the  world  acknowledges  to  be  the  only  ones  worth 
aiming  at. 

This  is  their  accusation :  that  the  Church  is  effete, 
because  out  of  touch  with  the  aspirations  of  so- 
ciety; and  really  mischievous  because,  so  far  as  her 
power  goes,  she  retards  progress  and  is  In  oppo- 
sition: to  it.  Like  some  other  accusations  against 
her,  It  is  false  In  statement,  but  witnesses  to  a  mis- 
apprehension of  a  truth  that  exists.  The  aspir- 
ations of  the  age  may  be  discordant  from  those  of 
the  Church,  and  yet  she  is  no  enemy  to  Progress. 
For  progress  she  has  always  been  working,  and  is 
working  still,  over  all  the  world,  in  the  heart  of 
each  of  her  children  who  will  listen  to  her  urgent 
voice. 

If  they  who  bring  the  charge  could  arraign  her 
before  their  tribunal  they  would  smoothly  warn  her 
that  she  was  on  her  defence. 

"But  you  have  no  counsel:  to  that  you  are 
entitled." 

"I  need  none.  He  whose  Voice  I  echo  in  this 
world  is  the  Prince  whose  name  Is  called  Councillor. 
It  suffices  me.  But  there  is  a  difficulty:  our  lan- 
guage Is  not  the  same.  I  know  what  yours 
means,  but  you  do  not  understand  mine.  You  ac- 
cuse me  of  desiring  to  bar  Human  Progress." 

"Do  you  deny  it?" 

"What  do  you  mean  by  Progress?" 

"Movement." 

"In  what  direction?" 


20  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

"Forward  of  course." 

"Is  not  all  movement  forward  in  some  direction? 
Does  not  every  step  carry  him  who  moves  towards 
something,  and  is  not  it,  therefore,  a  movement  for- 
ward towards  that  thing,  whatever  it  is?" 

"You  are  quibbling.  Can  you  really  not  under- 
stand us?" 

"I  can  understand  you;  but  I  want  you  to  express 
your  meaning." 

"We  mean,  then,  by  Progress,  movement  for- 
ward towards  the  betterment  of  society." 

"I  have  been  toiling  for  its  betterment  during 
nearly  nineteen  centuries." 

"You  used  to  do  so.  We  know  all  you  have  done 
in  the  past.  It  was  much.  But  your  clock  has 
stopped,  and  its  hands  stand  still." 

"They  point  to-day  as  they  have  pointed  always." 

"Whither?" 

"To  Eternity." 

(A  slight  movement  of  impatience  on  the  part  of 
the  Examiners). 

"  'Eternity.'     But   Eternity   is   not   our   affair." 

"No.     It  is  mine." 

"Our  business  is  with  men,  and  they  belong  to 
Time." 

"They  belong  to  Eternity:  a  little  bit  of  Time  be- 
longs to  them — not  by  right,  but  by  gift.  It  is  lent 
to  them  to  work  with — while  it  is  called  to-day." 

"Ah,  'to-day' !  That  is  more  practical.  It  is 
with  to-day  we  concern  ourselves." 

"And  so  do  I:  and  with  yesterday — for  warning 


PROGRESS  AND  PERFECTION  21 

and  for  learning;  and  with  to-morrow — for  hope." 
"You  deal  too  much  in  hope — and  promises." 
"They  are  not  mine.      He  who  makes  them  keeps 

them.     It  is  my  office  to  remind  of  them,  lest  they 

be  forgotten." 

"You  speak  of  God.     It  is  of  man  we  wish  to 

speak.     We  leave  God  to  you." 

"But  I  cannot  keep  Him  to  myself;  He  does  not 

belong  to  me,  but  I  to  Him,  and  all  men  are  His:  if 

I  tried  to  keep  Him  to  myself  I  should  be  a  thief 

like  you." 

"We  do  not  keep  Him  to  ourselves." 

"No.     You  steal  Him  from  the  world,  as  far  as 

you  can;  not  for  yourselves,  but  to  destroy  Him — if 

you  could." 

"You  wander  from  the  point — you  are  very  old, 

and  age  is  discursive." 

"My  point  is  always  the  same — God;  and  I  have 

never  wandered  from  it.     You  call  me  old  because 

I  have  lived  long;  I  was  alive  nearly  two  thousand 

years  before  you,  and  I  shall  be  alive  when  you  are 

dead.     But  old  age  is  feeble,  and  has  dull  hearing 

and  dim  sight,  and  has  no  fertility,  and  chill  feet, 

and  palsied  hands — " 

"You  will  wander.     It  was  of  Human  Progress 

we  were  to  speak." 

"And  I  told  you  that  you  could  not  understand 

me,  though  I  can  understand  you  better  than  you 

seem  able  to  express  yourselves." 

"You  talk  arrogantly — an  old  fault  of  yours." 
*Tt  sounds  arrogant,  in  the  ears  of  them  who  are 


22  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

not  certain,  when  one  who  is  certain  says  what  she 
means." 

"^We  are  certain  that  you  oppose  yourself  (in- 
effectually, of  course)  to  the  progress  of  man- 
kind." 

"I  reminded  you  how  I  helped  it — " 

"Yes,  and  we  admitted  it.  That  point  was  con- 
ceded. Let  us  get  on,  it  is  tiresome  arguing  round 
and  round." 

*'I  did  not  know  you  were  arguing.  I  thought 
you  only  seemed  to  be  asserting." 

"Come!  You  keep  harking  back  to  the  past;  it 
is  excusable,  for  you  belong  to  the  past — " 

"I  must  interrupt  you:  part  of  the  past  belonged 
to  me,  for  I  lived  in  it,  and  helped  to  fashion  it 
when  it  was  the  present.  But  I  am  alive  still,  and 
have  my  share  in  the  present  that  now  is." 

"No.  That  is  our  contention — you  turn  your 
back  on  the  present,  and  abdicate  it.  You  do  not 
belong  to  the  living  world." 

"Then  I  am  dead.  And  you  are  wasting  your 
breath  on  a  corpse !  I  thought  you  said  you  were 
practical.  Are  you  a  sort  of  spirit-rappers,  fooling 
in  a  dark  room  with  bogies?" 

"Now  you  are  flippant.  In  elderly  persons  it  is 
more  comely  to  be  serious," 

"I  am  cheerful.  You  are  dismal — it  is  the  fash- 
ion of  your  age,  and  I  do  not  wonder." 

"We  have  nothing  to  be  dismal  about.  We,  the 
heirs  of  all  the  ages — " 

"But  the   inheritance   of  the  ages  you   discard. 


PROGRESS  AND  PERFECTION  23 

Heirs  who  made  themselves  penniless  are  often 
anxious  and  melancholy." 

"That  is  nonsense.  We  have  all  that  the  ex- 
perience of  untold  ages  has  accumulated." 

"Except  God." 

"Why  will  you  keep  bringing  Him  in?  You 
seem  to  have  only  one  idea." 

"That  is  so.     But  it  comprehends  everything." 

"We  must  agree  to  differ.  How  you  elude  the 
point!  Human  Progress:  if  only  you  could  stick 
to  It." 

"I  am  not  its  bar.  It  is  only  one  of  the  jewels  in 
my  crown." 

"You  claim  sovereignty  still!  You  prate  of 
crowns." 

"My  crown  is  not  regal,  but  vice-regal — " 

"Ah,  we  see  what  you  would  be  at!  Back  again 
to  the  old  tedious  point.  Will  you  answer  our  ac- 
cusation?" 

"Formulate  it." 

"That  you  are  the  arch-foe  of  Human  Progress." 

"That  is  not  formulation,  but  repetition;  that  may 
be  tedious  without  having  precisely  a  point." 

"You  oppose  Liberty." 

"Do  I?  Whence  came  the  idea?  Who  first 
taught  the  world  that  slave  and  sovereign  had  to 
render  the  same  account  before  the  same  tribunal?" 

"The  past  again!  But  who,  in  the  present  state 
of  things,  claims  that  every  and  all,  and  every  man 
in  It,  is  subservient  to  the  same  irresponsible  author- 
ity?" 


24  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

"God." 

"That  name  again !  But  it  is  commonly  believed 
that  you  claim  this  subservience  for  yourself." 

"Commonly  believed!  Vulgarly  believed,  by  the 
ignorant  and  vulgar.  Are  vulgar  beliefs  so  sacred 
to  you?  I  claim  nothing  for  myself  but  everything 
for  my  King — Whose  viceroy  in  this  world  I  am." 

"You  claim  that  every  intellect  should  bow  to  your 
decree." 

"God  claims  that  the  mind  of  every  man  who 
knows  a  little  should  bow  to  His  that  knows  all." 

"We  cannot  deal  with  you  while  you  identify  your- 
self with  Him.      Can  you  not  answer  for  yourself?" 

"I  have  no  self  apart  from  Him.  My  existence 
depends  on  His.  I  have  no  independent  being.  I 
am  His  Church;  if  He  is  not,  I  am  nothing;  that  is 
why  you  call  me  dead — because  you  imagine  He  is 
abolished." 

"Subtleties!" 

"Simplicities!  You  have  always  accused  me  of 
subtlety.  It  is  my  simplicity  that  disconcerts  you — 
and  always  will.  That  the  Church  has  no  inde- 
pendent existence,  but  depends  on  God's  is  what 
annoys  you.  I  am,  only  because  He  is;  and,  since 
you  want  to  say  He  is  not,  and  never  was,  I  am  the 
most  unpardonable  thing  in  a  world  that  pretends 
that  He  is  nowhere.  If  I  were  what  you  say  I  am, 
I  should  have  ceased  long  ago." 

"Such  as  you  are,  you  are  a  fact — " 

"Certainly.  A  witness,  too;  and  a  witness  that 
can   never  be   cajoled,   nor   silenced,   nor   ignored. 


PROGRESS  AND  PERFECTION  25 

That  Is  my  crime.  You  cannot  disbelieve  God  and 
suffer  me  patiently." 

"You  talk  of  ideas  that  are  superannuated.  But, 
though  you,  too,  are  superannuated,  there  you  are." 

"You  mean  here." 

"Very  well,  here.  You  always  loved  fiddling 
with  words." 

"On  the  contrary,  my  habit  is  not  to  let  words 
fiddle  away  truth;  I  will  not  suffer  them  to  skip 
about,  but  bind  them  to  a  meaning,  and  see  what  it 
comes  to.  You  say  I  am  here;  that  is  your  real 
grievance  against  me.  You  know  I  am  alive,  and 
you  know  I  could  not  be  if  God  were  dead.  Ex- 
tinct monarchies  have  no  viceroys.  You  arc  angry 
because  you  pretend  God  is  gone,  and  you  cannot 
pretend  I  am  extinct.  I  am  His  moon,  and  my  re- 
flected light  is  intolerable  to  you  because  you  run 
about  saying  the  sun  is  quenched.  My  existence 
is  offensive  to  you  because  it  is  an  incorruptible 
witness  to  the  survival  of  a  Lawgiver  Whose  laws 
you  do  not  want  to  obey." 

"We  bow  to  the  inexorable  law  of  Human 
Progress." 

"If  it  be  an  inexorable  law  it  must  be  obeyed 
without  your  help.  Your  interference  and  assis- 
tance must  be  superfluous  and  oflEcious — as  if  you 
were  to  make  it  your  business  to  enforce  the  laws  of 
gravitation." 

"You  are  garrulous — like  all  old  persons. 
The  point  is  that  you  set  yourself  against  His  law." 

"If  there  be  such  law,  who  made  it?" 


26  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

"We  know  what  you  would  be  at:  but  it  is  self- 
existent." 

"Then  it  must  be  divine.  Perhaps  you  worship 
it.  If  so,  it  is  unfortunate  that  your  god  lacks  the 
attribute  of  omnipotence." 

"Perhaps  it  does  not  lack  it." 

"If  it  be  omnipotent  the  law  of  Human  Progress 
can  lose  nothing  by  the  opposition  you  attribute  to 
me. 

"Does  your  God  lose  nothing  by  our  not  obeying 
Him?" 

"He  has  all  things." 

"Except  our  obedience  and  recognition." 

"Your  obedience  and  recognition  which  do  not 
exist  are  not  things.     Non-existences  are  nothing." 

"That  is  how  you  love  to  talk.  Will  you  or  will 
you  not,  say  whether  you  do  oppose  Human 
Progress." 

"I  know  that  I  have  never  opposed  it.  But  you 
have  never  yet  told  me  what  you  mean  by  it." 

"Yes,  we  have.  We  have  told  you  we  mean  by 
it  the  betterment  of  man." 

"To  make  man  better  means  to  make  him  more 
good.     That  is  my  endless  task." 

"Oh,  'good!'  You  are  therej,  are  you?  We 
know  pretty  well  what  you  mean  by  good — " 

"You  may  well  know.  I  have  never  made  any 
secret  of  it.  But  you  speak  slightingly  when  you 
talk  of  goodness — " 

"Of  your  sort  of  goodness." 

"What  is  your  sort?" 


PROGRESS  AND  PERFECTION  27 

"We  do  not  hold  a  man  good  who  merely  says 
many  prayers — " 

"Nor  do  I." 

"You  make  a  great  deal  of  It." 

"I  think  a  great  deal  of  it.  It  is  a  help  towards 
being  good." 

"You  think  so.  We  do  not.  We  think  a  man 
good  who  fulfils  every  duty — " 

"Your  good  men  must  be  few." 

"Especially  all  his  duties  towards  mankind." 

"Every  man  is  himself  a  part  of  mankind.  Has 
he  any  duties  towards  the  rest  of  it?" 

"We  never  said  so.  You  try  to  put  words  in 
our  mouths — " 

"No.  I  am  only  trying  to  fit  some  meaning  to 
your  words.  What  are  a  man's  duties  towards 
himself?" 

"They  are  many:  to  be  sober,  for  instance,  and 
honest  and  truthful." 

"They  are  his  duty.     Why?" 

"Do  you  not  know?" 

"Very  well.  But,  if  you  know  too,  why  not 
say?" 

"Insobriety,  dishonesty,  and  lies  are  sins  against 
society." 

"Sins  against  one's  neighbour.  That  is  true. 
But  we  were  talking  of  a  man's  duty  to  himself. 
Mind,  I  am  well  aware  these  things  are  sins  against 
a  man's  self.  I  am  glad  you  think  so,  too.  But 
you  have  merely  alluded  to  their  being  offences 
against  society,  as  they  certainly  are.     And  I  should 


28  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

like  to  hear  why  you  believe  them  offences  against  a 
man's  self." 

"Because  every  man  should  be  a  blameless 
member  of  society." 

"That  seems  rather  because  of  his  duty  towards 
society." 

(One  Examiner)  :  "Man  has  no  existence 
except  as  a  unit  in  society." 

(Another  Examiner,  to  him)  :  "Take  care,  1 
am  afraid  she  will  catch  hold  of  that;  besides  I  am 
not  sure  if  it  is  true." 

(She,  to  the  first  Examiner)  :  "If  that  be  so  I 
do  not  see  how  any  individual  man  can  have  private 
duties  to  himself." 

(First  Examiner)  :  "In  this  way.  Each  self 
belongs  to  society  and  the  betterment  of  society 
involves  the  betterment  of  self." 

"That  still  leaves  what  you  call  betterment  a 
public  duty.  I  cannot  see  quite  where  your  private 
duties  come  in." 

"No,  there  arc  no  private  duties.  Every  duty  is 
public,  to  the  body  of  mankind." 

"If  private  duties  do  not  exist,  I  do  not  perceive 
how  private  sins  can  exist.  Is  there  any  harm  in 
private,  undetected  drunkenness?" 

"Of  course.  The  man  would  be  a  private  black- 
guard; if  all  society  consisted  of  private  blackguards 
it  would  be  a  blackguard  society." 

"I  quite  agree  with  you.  But  if  a  man  should 
happen  to  see  no  harm  in  being  drunk,  so  long  as  no 
one  knows  and  no  one  is  annoyed?" 


PROGRESS  AND  PERFECTION  ig 

"That  does  not  alter  facts.  He  is  a  blackguard 
all  the  same." 

"I  agree  again.  You  mean  he  breaks  a  law,  and 
the  fact  that  he  is  not  detected  does  not  alter  the 
other  fact  that  the  law  is  broken." 

"Precisely." 

"But  who  made  the  law  of  sobriety?" 

"Ah!  you  would,  would  you?  We  know  what 
you  are  driving  at.  But  the  law  of  sobriety  is  a 
law  of  nature." 

"Is  nature  conscious?  I  do  not  understand  how 
what  is  impersonal  can  be;  nor  how  what  is  un- 
conscious can  enact  laws.  Perhaps  I  do  not  under- 
stand what  you  mean  by  nature." 

"Very  likely.  Nature  is  the  whole  universe  and 
the  laws  that  govern  it." 

"You  identify  the  universe  and  its  laws.  The 
imposition  of  a  law  implies  superiority,  not  identity; 
nothing  can  be  superior  to  itself." 

"You  are  striving  to  entangle  us  in  metaphysics. 
We  wish  to  talk  plain  common  sense." 

"I  wish  you  would.  Will  your  common  sense 
mind  explaining  how  Nature  has  laws  made  by  her- 
self?" 

"It  is  the  simple  fact." 

"To  say  that  the  point  in  discussion  is  a  simple 
fact  may  be  true  or  false,  but  it  is  not  explanation. 
You  say  the  laws  of  nature  are  made  by  nature." 

"Yes." 

"Then  she  obeys  them  merely  because  she  choses, 
and  is  free  to  disobey  them." 


30  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

"Nature  cannot  Infringe  her  laws." 

"Then  they  are  not  hers,  but  are  imposed  by  a 
power  higher  than  hers.  No  self-made  law  is 
obligatory;  it  is  merely  a  resolution  of  self-guidance. 
If  what  you  call  laws  of  nature  have  no  obligation 
on  nature,  they  cannot  bind  the  different  parts  of 
which  she  is  a  whole.  Mankind  is  a  part,  and  each 
man  is  a  part  of  mankind;  if  there  be  no  law  but 
that  of  nature,  he,  a  part  of  it,  may  say,  'This  law  of 
mine  is  tiresome.  I  dispense  myself  from  it.  It  is 
only  a  resolution  of  my  own,  and  to  keep  it  bores 
me'." 

"Now  you  are  arguing  for  immorality." 

"No  I  am  not.  I  am  stating  facts.  If  morality 
be  not  inherent  it  implies  a  law  to  enforce  it.  If 
it  be  inherent  there  can  be  no  immorality,  for  by 
Inherent  necessity  morality  will  subsist  Impregnably 
uninfluenced  by  any  person's  conduct.  If,  however, 
It  be  not  Inherent,  but  depends  on  correspondence 
to  a  law,  then  the  law  must  have  a  sanction  higher 
than  that  of  the  individual,  or  of  the  nature  which 
he  represents,  of  which  he  is  a  part  and  a  constituent. 
If  there  really  be  a  law  of  nature,  it  must  be  enacted 
by  something  higher  than  nature,  else  she  need  not 
obey  it.  If  by  laws  of  nature  you  mean  laws  enacted 
by  nature  herself,  then  man,  if  he  be  bound  to  obey, 
is  not  a  part  of  nature,  but  something  lower  than 
her,  and  therefore  distinct  from  her." 

"We  are  getting  tired.  Will  you  flatly  say 
whether  you  care  for  Human  Progress?  We 
know    you     do    not,     that    you    dislike,     suspect. 


PROGRESS  AND  PERFECTION  31 

and     fear     it.     Plead     guilty     or     not     guilty." 

"You  expect  me  to  formulate  the  charge  against 
myself.  Your  flatulent  talk  has  never  defined 
Human  Progress.  I  will  define  your  meaning  for 
you.  Your  object  is  to  make  men  more  comfort- 
able." 

"Well." 

"I  cannot  congratulate  you  on  your  success. 
Comfort  is  your  ideal,  not  happiness.  But  even 
comfort  ('scorned  of  devils,'  as  your  poet  sings), 
how  much  have  you  achieved  in  giving  it?  Is  it 
because  men  are  more  comfortable  than  ever  that 
they  kill  themselves  more  than  ever?  Your  idea 
of  supreme  discomfort  is  poverty.  When  was  there 
more  of  it?  My  object  is  not  yours.  I  do  not 
confound  comfort  and  happiness.  I  can  gild  dis- 
comfort and  make  it  happy — by  the  golden  rays  of 
indestructible  Hope.  You  scorn  hope,  and  can 
see  nothing  beyond  the  present;  and  how  your 
votaries  complain  of  it.  Your  fatuous  endeavour 
is  to  provide  sufficient  comfort  to  go  round,  no 
matter  who  suffers.  Mine  is  to  lead  all  men  to 
Perfection.  This  is  my  business:  by  a  perfect 
example  I  woo  all  who  will  be  brave  to  an  ideal 
beyond  your  highest,  wildest  flight.  You  offer  a 
few  instalments  of  dull  comfort;  I  summon  all  to 
Perfection — " 

(The  Examiner,  laughing  and  interrupting)  : 
"Perfection!!!" 

(A  rustle  and  twitter  of  giggling  merriment, 
much  nudging  and  shrugging.  .  .  .) 


OF  PREACHING  AND  PRACTICE 


CATHOLICS  who  live  in  a  non-Catholic 
country  as  we  do  in  England,  must,  if  they 
be  worth  the  name  of  Catholic,  not  only 
desire  very  earnestly  the  conversion  of  their  non- 
Catholic  neighbours,  but  be  much  preoccupied  by 
the  thought  of  it.  Converts  may,  naturally,  feel 
this  preoccupation  with  a  special  intensity,  because 
those  of  whom  they  are  thinking,  for  whom  they 
are  so  constantly  praying  are  their  own  flesh  and 
blood — the  parents  by  whom  God  gave  them  life 
itself,  the  brothers  and  sisters  with  whom  they 
played  in  childhood,  husband  even  or  wife.  Not 
to  yearn  for  their  conversion  would  seem,  in  their 
case,  a  lack  of  natural  affection.  And  remembering 
by  what  roads  they  themselves  arrived  in  the  City 
of  God's  Peace  they  cannot  but  feel  eager  to  show 
those  roads  to  the  dear  ones  they  have  left  wander- 
ing outside.  So  that,  to  the  captious  Catholic  of 
dull  sympathies  and  sluggish  imagination,  they 
sometimes  appear  to  "think  too  much  of  Protes- 
tants." 

But  though  the  convert  may  have  this  eagerness 
for  the  conversion  of  those  still  alien  to  the  Church 
in  a  peculiar  degree  and  though  in  him  it  may  have 

32 


OF  PREACHING  AND  PRACTICE  33 

a  special  vehemence  of  expression,  no  Catholic  who 
really  cares  for  his  faith  and  knows  the  treasure  he 
has  in  it  can  be  at  all  indifferent  in  the  matter.  And 
the  more  earnest  a  Catholic  is  about  his  religion,  the 
farther  will  he  be  from  anything  like  indifference. 
Accordingly,  we  find  that  some  of  those  who  in 
England  have  been  most  eager  and  devoted  in  the 
work  of  the  spread  of  the  Faith  have  been  what  are 
called  "old  Catholics,"  whose  own  kith  and  kin  and 
ancestors  had  always  been  Catholic. 

These  have  been  willing  to  bear  constantly  in  mind 
the  missionary  character  of  the  Catholic  Church  in 
modern  England.  They  have  warmly  welcomed 
every  prudent  proposal  that  seemed  in  any  way 
calculated  to  promote  a  knowledge  of  the  Faith 
among  non-Catholics;  their  own  labour  they  have 
not  spared;  and  they  have  displayed  the  most 
singular  readiness  of  sympathy  in  their  endeavour  to 
prejudices  of  those  outside, 
understand  and  fit  themselves  to  the  ideas  or  even 

Without  pausing  upon  great  and  famous  names, 
like  those  of  Wiseman  and  Ullathorne,  we  may 
truthfully  say  that  the  work  of  the  conversion  of 
England  up  to  the  present  time  has  largely  been 
carried  on  by  Irish  priests  and  Irish  nuns  in  England 
in  spite  of  the  extreme  divergence  of  jiatural 
sympathies  and  feelings  beween  them  and  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  people  with  whom  they  have  had  to  deal. 
And  nothing  could  more  marvellously  illustrate  the 
constraining  force  of  grace,  the  wonderful  results 
that  the  sheer  love  of  God,  and  of  man  for  God's 


34  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

sake  can  effect:  for  the  national  difference  of 
character,  apart  altogether  from  accidental  dif- 
ferences such  as  occur  in  the  mere  region  of  political 
ideas,  is,  as  I  think,  much  greater  between  an  Irish- 
man and  an  Englishman  than  that  between  an 
Englishman  and  a  German,  or  an  Englishman  and  a 
member  of  one  of  the  Latin  races. 

In  spite,  I  say,  of  this  natural  divergence,  almost 
antipathy,  of  character,  I  have  never  known  an  Irish 
priest  in  England  who  did  not  love  the  English 
members  of  his  flock  and  was  not  loved  by  them  in 
return  with  just  as  true  a  filial  devotion  as  if  he  had 
been  an  Anglo-Saxon  like  themselves. 

Accordingly  at  the  present  moment,  when  the 
bulk  of  the  Catholic  clergy  in  England  is  still  Irish 
by  birth,  or  by  name  and  descent,  every  plan  or 
movement  for  what  is  called  the  conversion  of  Eng- 
land is  welcomed  and  adopted  by  the  clergy  with 
untiring  hope  and  a  self-sacrificing  readiness  to  lend 
their  own,  already  hugely  overtaxed,  labours  to  it. 
Nor,  on  the  whole,  are  they  badly  seconded  by  the 
laity;  for  it  is  hardly  fair  to  expect  the  laity 
to  behave  like  missionary  priests:  and  a  great  pro- 
portion of  the  Catholic  laity  in  England  do  seem  to 
realize  that  their  position  too  has,  in  a  country  like 
this,  some  missionary  character. 

It  is  not  at  all  my  present  purpose  to  speak  of  the 
various  organizations  we  have  for  the  spread  of 
Catholic  truth — or,  in  other  words,  for  the  conver- 
sion of  England;  I  do  not  want  to  detail  them,  or 
express  at  large  the  admiration  I  feel  for  the  noble 


OF  PREACHING  AND  PRACTICE  35 

work  they  are  doing.  I  merely  wish  to  recognise 
their  existence,  and  record  my  full  sense  of  their 
necessity,  to  rejoice  in  all  they  are  doing  and  bid 
God-speed  to  them,  one  and  all. 

Apart  from  any  such  societies  there  is  another 
sort  of  work  that  is  being  done  for  the  spread  of 
Catholic  truth — the  work  of  preaching  and  of  writ- 
ing; sometimes  by  the  same  brilliant  and  zealous 
men,  though  sometimes  the  preaching  is  done  by  one 
set  of  Catholic  apologists,  and  the  writing  by 
another.  In  both  cases  it  is  being  done  very  well. 
The  pity  is  that  the  Catholic  sermons  are  not  heard 
and  the  Catholic  books  not  read  by  more  of  those 
for  whose  sake  in  especial  they  are  preached  and 
written.  We  can  only  help  both  preacher  and 
writer  by  our  prayers  that,  by  what  men  call  acci- 
dent, more  hearers  from  outside  may  accrue  to  the 
preachers  and  more  readers  to  the  writers;  and  by 
our  prayers  that  God  Himself  may  guide  those 
who  make  the  sermons  and  the  books,  that  they 
may  say  and  write  what  may  best  help  to  set  out  the 
beauty  and  truth  of  the  Catholic  faith  and  ideal  of 
human  life. 

This  much  is  put  down  here  lest  it  should  for  a 
moment  seem  as  though  I  thought  any  of  these 
things,  the  societies,  the  sermons,  or  the  books  and 
writings,  anything  short  of  indispensable.  We  need 
not  less  of  them  all,  but  more  and  more.  Yet  there 
is  something  else.  The  ultimate  cause  of  any  con- 
version to  the  Catholic  Church  has  lain,  not  in  any 
society,  in  any  preacher,  in  any  writer,  but  in  the 


36  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

truth  of  that  expressed  by  the  society,  the  sermon, 
or  the  book.  In  other  words,  It  is  the  Church  her- 
self that  converts  outsiders,  not  her  exponents.  If 
the  Church  were  not  what  the  society,  or  the  sermon, 
or  the  book  pretended,  it  would  be  found  out,  and 
conversions  would  not  follow  on  any  organization, 
or  any  eloquence,  or  any  brilliance  of  literary 
exposition. 

Heresy  and  unbelief  have  decried  and  defamed 
the  Church:  the  enquirer  may  take  note  of  what  this 
or  that  society  urges  upon  his  attention,  of  what 
such  a  preacher  argues,  what  such  a  book  pleads,  but 
he  goes  behind  all  of  them,  and  considers  for  himself 
the  evidence  provided  by  what,  in  fact.  Catholics 
are  made  by  the  Catholic  Church  to  be. 

There  are  converts,  no  doubt,  who  have  been,  so 
to  speak,  converted  by  their  reading,  in  their  studies; 
by  weighing  of  historical,  philosophical,  and  ethical 
proofs  and  arguments;  by  whom  the  past  is  called 
up  to  bear  witness,  from  whom  the  august  story  of 
the  Church's  influence,  of  her  claims  and  of  her 
defence  of  them,  has  been  the  guiding  beacon  that 
led  them  to  the  City  on  the  Hill;  and  such  converts 
have  been  among  the  most  influential.  Their 
conviction  has  convinced  others  In  turn.  But  they 
have  never  been,  or  can  be,  the  majority;  and  in- 
calculably beneficial  as  their  conversions  have  been, 
directly  or  Indirectly,  not  only  to  those  under  the 
direct  Influence  of  their  personality  or  of  their  writ- 
ing and  preaching,  but  upon  the  general  estimation 
of  the   Catholic  body  by  those   outside  it,   there, 


OF  PREACHING  AND  PRACTICE  37 

remains  the  fact  that  there  is  a  class  much  more 
numerous  than  the  reading  class,  and  a  non-Catholic 
public  that  never  enters  a  Catholic  church  or  hears  a 
Catholic  preacher,  incomparably  more  numerous 
than  that  mere  percentage  that  does  occasionally 
hear  a  Catholic  sermon,  and  may,  as  it  were,  at  hap- 
hazard read  some  Catholic  work. 

By  what  means,  humanly  speaking,  are  such 
people  to  be  brought  to  the  consideration  of  the 
claims  of  Catholic  truth?  On  what,  in  other  words, 
can  we  ground  any  human  hopes  of  their  conversion 
— since  we  can  hardly  be  content  if  only  the  student 
or  the  religious  expert  is  to  be  converted? 

The  answer  lies  in  the  consideration  of  the 
influences  that  have  drawn  such  people,  in  the  first 
instance  at  all  events,  that  are  drawing  many  such, 
every  day,  up  and  down  the  country,  to  give  the 
necessary  initial  attention  to  the  claims  of  the 
Catholic  Church;  for  until  that  attention  be  caught 
nothing  further  can  be  done.  Apart,  then,  alto- 
gether from  the  more  intellectual  type  of  convert, 
whose  own  study  brings  him  to  recognise  Catholic 
truth,  it  is  certain  that  immense  numbers,  to  whom 
religious  study  appeals  as  little  as  any  other  study, 
have  become  Catholics  by  the  force,  in  the  first 
instance,  at  any  rate,  of  Catholic  example.  Such 
people  have  had  Catholic  friends,  relations,  or 
acquaintances;  and,  wholly  without  knowledge,  as 
they  have  been,  of  anything  like  dogma  or  of 
history,  they  have  been  able  to  perceive  in  the 
Catholics   they  knew   something   that  i.iade    them 


38  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

aware  of  a  genuineness,  a  reality,  in  the  religion  of 
those  Catholics  that  was  novel  in  their  experience. 
The  Catholics  themselves,  hard-working,  poor,  with 
little  leisure  and  perhaps  with  little  taste  for  any- 
thing like  study,  may  not  have  been  experts  in  the 
theory  of  their  religion,  or  of  its  history;  neverthe- 
less, they  did  know  what  they  believed,  what 
they  did  not  believe,  and  what  they  might  not  be- 
lieve; their  faith  was  not  vague,  halting,  wavering 
or  inconsistent,  but  compact  and  definite,  clear  and 
capable  of  intelligible  statement.  And,  further- 
more, their  practice  was  unmistakably  directed  by 
their  belief.  Their  religion,  while  resting  on  a  cer- 
tain and  articulate  faith,  expressed  its  conviction  of 
professed  truths  in  a  consistency  of  conduct  and  con- 
science, also  somewhat  novel  to  these  observers;  for 
many  an  observer,  grossly  ignorant  himself  even  of 
elemental  religious  truth,  is  shrewd  enough  in 
recognizing  reality  and  consistency. 

I  believe  that  if  the  priests  who  receive  into  our 
Church,  as  they  are  daily  doing  all  over  England,  the 
unlettered  converts  I  am  trying  to  describe,  would 
give  their  evidence,  it  would  be  found  to  support 
what  has  just  been  urged:  that  Is  to  say,  that  the 
majority  of  such  converts  were  first  drawn  to  con- 
sider Catholicity  at  all  by  the  example  of  the  Cath- 
olics they  knew — of  their  own  unlettered  class. 
That  example,  the  visible  instances  within  their  own 
rather  narrow  experience,  first  led  these  non-Cath- 
olics to  surmise  that  the  Catholic  Faith  does  some- 
thing for  its  members  that  no  other  religion  does. 


OF  PREACHING  AND  PRACTICE  39 

What  struck  them  first  was  the  easily-noted  fact  that 
these  Catholic  neighbours  of  theirs  cared  much  more 
for  their  Church  than  any  other  people  they  knew 
seemed  to  care  for  theirs.  They  perceived  in  Cath- 
olics an  affection  for  Catholicity  that  was  singular 
in  their  experience.  For,  among  the  masses  belong- 
ing nominally  to  the  Established  Religion  of  Eng- 
land, any  thing  that  could  be  called  personal  affec- 
tion for  the  Church  of  England  is  very  unusual:  the 
most  of  them  would  be  inclined  to  give  no  stronger 
reason  for  belonging  to  it  than  that  they  did  belong 
to  it,  and  might  as  well  belong  to  it  as  anything  else. 
And  the  other  masses,  perhaps  more  really  numer- 
ous, that  belong  to  the  various  Nonconformist 
bodies,  seem  to  do  less  out  of  a  peculiar  love  to 
their  own  sect  than  out  of  a  dislike  or  suspicion  of 
the  Establishment;  their  adhesion  seems  to  have 
chiefly  a  negative,  rather  than  a  positive,  significance: 
they  belong  there  because  they  refuse  to  belong 
somewhere  else.  When  most  heated  it  is  not  with 
love  for  their  own  body  but  with  anger  against,  or 
disapproval  of,  the  body  from  which  they  seceded. 
Of  the  beauty  and  sweetness  of  their  own  partic- 
ular Free  Church,  of  its  credentials  and  its  noble 
history,  they  have  little  to  say  in  comparison  with 
what  they  have  to  bring  in  accusation  against  the 
elder  heresy  from  which  they  broke  away:  its  dead- 
ness,  Erastianism,  worldliness,  unspirituality,  tyr- 
anny, or  corruption.  The  value  of  their  own  sect 
is  rather  urged  comparatively  than  positively,  and 
the  measure  of  their  fondness  for  It  is  chiefly  the 


40  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

degree  of  their  animosity  against  that  whence  they 
cast  themselves  loose.  And  this  attitude  expresses 
itself  very  well  in  vehemence  and  invective,  but  is 
much  less  eloquent  in  eulogy;  it  finds  itself  warm  and 
glib  in  criticism,  but  more  chilly  in  the  language  of 
love. 

And  such  observers  as  I  am  trying  to  describe, 
shrewd  though  not  much  lettered  or  expert,  can  fully 
note  this,  and  can  contrast  it  with  the  positive  affec- 
tion of  Catholics,  simple  as  themselves,  for  their 
own  Church.  The  Catholics,  they  perceive,  have  a 
love  for  their  religion  which  is  not  merely  compara- 
tive; they  love  their  Church  for  what  she  is,  not  sim- 
ply because  she  is  not  some  other  body  that  they  dis- 
like and  have  a  grudge  against:  they  would  much 
rather  talk  of  the  glories  of  the  Church  than  of  the 
failure  of  other  religions  to  achieve  such  glories. 
If  our  observer  sometimes  begins  to  tell  himself  that 
his  Catholic  friend  seems  a  little  disposed  to  brag  of 
the  greatness  of  his  Church,  he  also  suspects  that 
the  other  religionists  are  not  so  modest  but  what 
they  would  be  equally  inclined  to  boast  of  the  glories 
of  their  sect  if  they  were  equally  able  to  state  in  what 
those  glories  consisted;  whereas  they  appear  some- 
what inclined  to  leave  those  splendours  to  the  imag- 
ination of  their  hearer — duly  inflamed  by  abuse  of 
the  counsel  on  the  other  side. 

If,  he  is  able  to  perceive,  his  Catholic  friends  do 
assume  a  somewhat  lofty  tone  in  talking  of  the  won- 
ders of  the  Catholic  Church,  they  at  least  are  ready 
to  say  what  those  wonders  are ;  they  have  a  long  list 


OF  PREACHING  AND  PRACTICE  41 

of  actual  possessions  to  detail,  and  the  spiritual 
riches  of  the  Catholic  Church  do  not  merely  consist 
in  the  spiritual  poverty  of  the  rival  religions:  if 
there  were  no  rival  bodies  the  Catholic  Church 
would  evidently  be  not  a  penny  the  poorer;  but 
where  would  the  magnificence  of  Nonconformity  be 
if  there  were  no  Church  of  England? 

Our  shrewd  and  simple  observer  confesses  that, 
if  the  Catholic  also  dislikes  the  schismatic  religions, 
it  is  obviously  because,  in  his  estimation,  they  have 
intervened  to  deprive  Christians  of  their  heirloom 
in  all  that  should  have  been  theirs  in  the  Church; 
whereas  the  schismatics  abhor  the  Church,  not  for 
having  stolen  something  away,  but  for  keeping  intact 
what  they  hoped  to  have  destroyed;  for  insisting  on 
giving  to  men  what  they  have  assured  mankind  it 
does  not  in  the  least  require.  And  our  observer 
notes  that  all  these  things  that  the  Catholics  still 
have,  which  their  Church  goes  on  giving  them,  un- 
perturbed by  the  outsider's  cry  that  they  are  useless 
and  mischievous,  are  highly  valued  by  them  who 
still  have  them,  and  do,  somehow,  make  them  Christ- 
tians  of  a  more  distinctively  Christian  quality,  and 
give  them  an  unmistakable  character  of  supernat- 
ural, definite,  unwavering,  unworldly,  unpagan  re- 
ligion that  is  not  elsewhere  observable.  He  per- 
ceives that  a  Catholic  is,  at  all  events,  not  at  all  like 
a  rationalist,  an  unbeliever,  or  a  decorously-dressed 
heathen;  that  Jesus  Christ  is  to  him  God  and  law; 
that  fashions  in  ideas  do  not  send  him  peering  about 
in  search  of  principles;  that  on  the  voyage  of  life  he 


42  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

has  his  place  in  an  ancient  but  not  untrusted  boat, 
his  pilot,  and  his  chart;  that  he  does  not  stand  knee- 
deep  in  the  surf  begging  it  to  abstain  from  submerg- 
ing him,  nor  clutching  hold  of  every  mass  of  drift- 
wood, weed,  or  wreckage,  and  begging  it  to  be  his 
vehicle  some-whither. 

It  will  be  noted  that  allusion  has  so  far  been  made 
to  two  classes  or  grades  of  converts — those  who, 
before  joining  the  Church,  have  made  considerable 
study  of  religious  and  ecclesiastical  questions,  and 
those  who  have  made  very  little,  being  in  this  latter 
case  the  sort  of  people  who  are  not  in  the  way  of 
study  of  any  kind.  There  are,  of  course,  interme- 
diate classes.  There  are  the  moderately  educated, 
and  with  these  also  the  first  impulse  towards  the 
Church  has  often  sprung  from  observation  of  Cath- 
olics, and  the  influences  just  described  have  affected 
them  in  the  same  manner.  Moving  in  a  somewhat 
higher  social  class,  the  Catholics  they  have  known 
have  been  better  educated,  and  perhaps  have  been 
able  to  give  a  more  explicit  account  of  their  religion, 
its  creeds  and  its  credentials.  Nevertheless,  it  has 
not  been  by  what  they  have  been  able  to  say  that 
their  non^Catholic  friends  have  been  drawn  to  give 
some  serious  and  respectful  attention  to  Catholicity, 
so  much  as  by  what  the  non-Catholics  have  perceived 
them  to  be;  it  Is  as  examples  of  Catholicity  that  they 
have  been  mainly  influential.  Where  the  Catholic 
is  of  absolutely  first-rate  quality  this  influence  is  very 
great  indeed;  but  the  influence  is  considerable  even 
in  the  case  of  quite  an  ordinary  Catholic,  provided 


OF  PREACHING  AND  PRACTICE  43 

he  be  a  genuine,  practising  Catholic  at  all.  There 
is  something  in  this  latter  also  which  shows  him  to  be 
markedly  unlilce  the  nominal  Christian,  and  lilce 
nothing  else  except  his  fellow-Catholics.  And  it  is 
plainly  apparent  that  all  that  is  best  in  him  is  due 
to  the  fact  of  his  religion;  It  Is  not  attributable  to 
merely  personal  qualities,  and  cannot  be  mistaken 
for  the  effect  of  individual  character.  An  outside 
observer  soon  notes  that,  with  Catholics,  the  more 
Catholic  they  are  the  better  they  are;  and  this  he 
does  not  perceive  In  the  case  of  members  of  other 
religious  bodies;  whence  he  concludes  that  there  is 
something  in  Catholicity  that  tends  to  excellence  in 
its  members.  So  strongly  does  this  principle  impress 
itself  upon  him  that,  afterwards,  you  will  find  him 
little  disposed  to  accuse  the  Church  of  the  faults  of 
bad  Catholics;  for  he  has  come  to  know  that  the 
more  faulty  they  are  the  less  are  they  under  the  In- 
fluence of  their  faith.  Nevertheless,  it  remains 
true  that  if  he  had,  in  the  first  instance,  been  so  un- 
fortunate as  to  come  across  only  bad  Catholics,  he 
would  have  been  very  little  drawn  to  any  respectful 
consideration  of  Catholicity.  He  might  have  tacitly 
assumed  them  to  be  ordinary  specimens  of  what  the 
Church  makes  of  her  children;  as  it  Is,  he  takes 
them  for  bad  specimens.  Even  here,  however,  it 
is  fair  to  remark  that  many  a  very  imperfect  Cath- 
olic, of  irregular  life  and  lax  practice  of  his  religion, 
does  somehow  bear  witness  not  merely  against  him- 
self but  in  favour  of  his  religion;  against  himself  by 
being  what  he  Is;  in  favour  of  his  neglected  faith  by 


44  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

oddly  showing  what  it  would  do  for  him  if  he  would 
let  it.  Until  he  has  lost  his  faith  altogether,  even 
the  careless  Catholic  has  commonly  something  about 
him  that  reminds  us  of  the  spiritual  inheritance  he 
is  wasting;  however  dormant  or  ill-treated,  there  is 
in  him  a  supernatural  sense  that  will  often  strike  a 
brother-scapegrace. 

All  that  I  have  been  trying  to  say  comes,  then, 
to  this :  that  it  is  the  Church  herself  that  converts,  in 
innumerable  instances,  rather  than  any  eloquence  of 
a  preacher,  or  any  arguments  of  a  writer,  or  any 
efforts  of  a  society.  It  is  the  inherent  quality  of 
Catholicism  that  arrests  the  observer,  and  disposes 
him  to  consider  the  other  evidences  of  its  truth. 

From  this  it  is  not  at  all  intended  to  deduce  the 
maxim  that  we  are  to  seem  as  good  as  possible;  that 
we  are  to  behave  smugly  and  pretend  that  Catholics 
are  all  good;  that  all  the  professors  of  any  religion 
have  ever  been  exemplary.  I  suspect  that  some 
harm  is  done  by  the  over-eager  zeal  of  some  good 
people  who  will  never  admit  that  a  Catholic  has 
been  seriously  at  fault.  Nobody's  eyes  are  opened 
by  our  trying  to  throw  dust  in  them,  however  loyal 
our  intention  may  be,  and  to  try  is  really  not  an 
overflow  of  faith  but  a  defect  of  it.  The  Church 
has  nothing  to  lose  by  the  whole  truth  being  known; 
it  is  the  blindness  of  those  outside  she  has  to  heal, 
not  any  keenness  of  their  scrutiny.  Catholic  dirty 
linen,  it  is  urged  by  weaker  brethren,  should  never 
be  washed  in  public;  that  is  really  a  question  of 
taste,   and  dirty  linen  anywhere  is  obnoxious  to  a 


OF  PREACHING  AND  PRACTICE  45 

taste  that  is  refined.  But  what  is  of  substantial 
consequence  is  that  there  should  be  as  little  dirty 
linen  as  possible  to  need  washing,  and  that  depends 
not  on  history  but  on  ourselves.  In  other  words, 
the  quality  of  the  Catholic  body  depends  upon  its 
members ;  let  them  see  to  it.  That  is  every  Catholic 
man's  share  in  the  conversion  of  the  non-Catholic 
world.  Some  may  write,  some  may  preach,  some 
may  organise,  but  all  must  be;  and  on  what  we  are 
will  rest  the  conclusion  of  the  outside  world  as  to 
the  effects  of  Catholicity  upon  the  Church's  children. 
That  is  why  I  would  urge  the  general  recognition 
of  Catholics  that  the  conversion  of  England,  or  of 
any  non-Catholic  society,  will  not  really  be  effected 
by  preaching,  or  writing,  or  organising,  though  each 
is  necessary,  and  an  obedience  that  we  owe  to  Our 
Lord's  mandate;  but  by  the  Church  being  what  she 
is;  and  our  own  share  in  proving  what  she  is,  must 
lie  in  making  ourselves  what  she  wishes  us  to  be. 
Where,  in  any  given  region,  the  Church  has  suffered 
real  loss,  apart  from  material  loss — as  of  endow- 
ment, patronage,  establishment,  etc. — her  members 
in  that  region  can  hardly  be  excused  from  their  share 
of  responsibility  for  the  evil;  for  though  attacks 
come  from  without,  and  no  excellence  of  the 
Church's  children  anyrvhere  can  disarm  real  malice 
and  enmity,  those  attacks  can  only  wound  in  material 
things,  so  long  as  the  real  substantial  quality  of  the 
Catholic  body  in  any  region  is  what  it  ought  to  be. 
If  we  could  suppose  a  region  where  the  general 
quality  of   the    Catholic  body  had   fallen   beneath 


46  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

itself,  there,  Indeed,  would  the  Church  be  liable  to 
suffer  grievous  wounds  In  that  one  of  her  members. 
The  Church  herself  Is  Indeed  Indefectible,  and  we 
have  Christ's  promise  that  the  gates  of  hell  shall 
never  prevail  against  her;  but  He  has  not  promised 
that  they  shall  not  prevail  against  the  unfaithful 
Individual  who,  by  disloyalty  or  failure  to  use  the 
graces  held  for  him  in  trust  by  the  Church,  abdicates 
his  own  share  In  the  promise;  and,  In  like  manner,  a 
special  group  of  individuals,  even  so  large  a  group 
as  makes  up  the  general  body  of  Catholics  In  a  given 
region,  might  by  neglect  of  their  religion  bring  It  for 
the  time  almost  to  ruin  there. 

It  requires  no  gift  of  prophesy  to  foresee  that  the 
present  state  and  progress  of  things  will  before  long 
make  the  Church,  all  over  the  world,  what  she  was 
for  many  ages — the  only  representative  of  Christ- 
ianity and  of  supernatural  religion. 

The  purely  natural  forces  of  sectarian  Christ- 
ianity are  being  rapidly  exhausted;  they  and  their 
forbears  had  a  certain  capital  of  faith  carried  with 
them  out  of  the  Chur,ch  Into  exile;  on  that  capital 
they  have  been  living,  and  It  Is  nearly  wasted;  they 
have  nothing,  when  It  Is  gone,  upon  which  they  can 
go  on  living.  For  the  life  of  religion  Is  not  in- 
definitely divisible,  like  some  forms  of  natural  life 
whose  mode  of  propagation  consists  solely  of 
progressive  splitting  up.  The  unresting  splitting 
up  of  the  sects  does  not  Increase  their  stock  of  life, 
but  only  wears  It  out. 

As  for  the  ancient  schismatic  churches,  they  are 


OF  PREACHING  AND  PRACTICE  47 

not  at  all  missionary  or  propagandist,  and  the  un- 
believing world  is  entirely  uninfluenced  by  them.  So 
that  the  Cathohc  Church  will  presently  stand  heiress 
by  default  of  the  Christian  faith  and  inheritance. 
The  sum  of  what  she  will  be  recognized  by  the  world 
to  possess  will  largely  depend  upon  the  quality  of 
her  members;  each  individual  Catholic,  therefore, 
should  feel  his  own  responsibility,  and  in  his  own 
life  and  person  contribute  his  own  offering  to  the 
Church's  spiritual,  ethical  wealth.  No  Catholic  is 
to  say  to  himself  that  the  conversion  of  England, 
or  of  any  country,  is  the  business  of  the  writers,  the 
preachers,  and  theologians,  the  various  organisa- 
tions existing  to  that  end  in  the  Church;  they  are  to 
do  their  share,  he  is  not  to  leave  his  share  undone, 
and  his  is  to  contribute  to  the  quality  of  Catholicity 
his  own  correspondence  with  the  graces  that  the 
Church  is  daily  urging  upon  his  acceptance. 

If  it  were  possible,  as  it  is  not,  for  the  Carmelite 
in  her  cell  to  read  of  some  of  the  noble  efforts  being 
made  all  over  the  Catholic  world  for  the  conversion 
of  heretics  and  unbelievers,  can  we  not  imagine  that 
she  might  feel  a  compunction,  a  scruple,  a  twinge,  as 
it  were,  of  regret  that  in  all  these  works  she  was  not 
sharing?  And  yet  it  would  be  a  scruple,  and,  like 
all  scruples,  a  false  accusation,  a  pitiful  attempt  of 
the  Arch-Accuser  to  confuse  issues  and  weaken 
strength.  She  would  know  it  was  so;  the  grace  of 
her  sublime  and  unearthly  vocation  would  teach  her 
to  throw  it  from  her  with  smiling  trust  and  knowl- 
edge   of   God,    Who   sets   one   here    and    another 


48  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

there,  and  never  asks  one  to  do  another's  work,  or 
demands  that  the  adept  with  one  tool  or  weapon 
should  bungle  with  another.  She  would  know  that 
God  had  given  her  a  rare  and  special  work  for  the 
world's  conversion.  And  while  she  in  her  lowly 
estimation  of  herself,  would  remember,  perhaps, 
only  her  prayers,  we  must  remember  much  more. 
Though  behind  the  grill  that  hides  her  perfection 
from  all  sight  but  God's  no  man  ever  hears  her  voice, 
or  sees  her  face;  though  it  be  not  hers  to  preach,  nor 
hers  to  write;  though  her  influence  be  unsuspected  by 
the  jostling,  unpraying  world  outside;  though  she 
deliver  no  argument  and  speak  of  God  only  to  Him- 
self— yet  she  is  doing  much  for  the  conversion  of  the 
world.  Of  her  prayers  we  do  not  speak;  such 
prayer  as  hers  is  Sacramentum  Regis,  the  King's 
secret,  a  ground  holy  and  ineffable,  into  which  we 
dare  not  pry.  But  she  does  something  else:  she, 
out  of  sight,  on  the  gaunt  and  austere  heights  of 
Carmel,  is  giving  her  quality  to  the  Church.  To  its 
spiritual  wealth  she  is,  with  lavish  hand,  contributing 
her  daily,  hourly  gold;  her  thin  hand  drops  more  into 
the  treasury  than  ours.  And  these  gifts  of  hers 
are  given  by  every  religious  of  every  Order.  Of 
some  the  world  itself  takes  cognisance,  because 
their  special  function  is  to  minister  to  the  only 
wants  the  world  can  understand :  sickness  and 
poverty  and  gross  ignorance.  But,  noble  as  all  these 
works  are,  whether  done  by  religious  or  seculars, 
by  those  dedicated  openly  to  God's  service  in  priest- 
hood  or   cloister,   or  by   the   Catholic  layman   or 


OF  PREACHING  AND  PRACTICE  49 

woman,  we,  who  are  Catholics,  must  ever  remember 
that  it  is  not  in  their  "utihty"  (as  the  world  has  it) 
that  their  sole  glory  lies;  rather  it  is  because  all 
who  share  in  such  labours  are  contributing  each 
his  share  or  hers  to  the  spiritual  quality  of  Cath- 
olicity, that  is,  of  the  actual  body  Catholic. 

Do  all  Catholics  remember  this?  I  myself  have 
heard  Catholics  say  of  themselves:  ^^IFe  are 
workers.  Your  Carmelites,  your  Poor  Clares,  your 
Trappists,  and  the  rest,  what  do  they  do?" 

Should  they  not  rather  ask  themselves  what  the 
Trappists  and  the  Poor  Clares  and  the  Carmelites 
are'^  By  what  they  are,  these  hidden  servants 
serve.  Giving  themselves  to  God  and  His  Church, 
they  give  more  than  any  sermon  can  give,  or  any 
book,  or  any  speech;  it  is  by  such  gifts  as  theirs  that 
the  Church  is  held  on  a  plane  higher  than  that  of  the 
most  restlessly  energetic  sect.  It  is  they,  and  those 
who  are  like  them,  who  make  true  the  things  we  say 
about  the  Church  and  her  ineffable,  inimitable 
sanctity. 

The  sects  can  preach  and  talk  and  organise,  so 
must  we;  but  unless  there  is  more  behind  us,  we  shall 
hardly  be  what  we  are  to  be  if  the  world  is  still 
to  see  in  the  Church  something  wholly  different 
from  the  sects,  something  marked  with  a  higher 
and  more  divine  impress,  that  intrinsic  quality  that 
in  every  age  has  convinced  the  world  that  Christ 
dwells  in  the  Church  at  home,  as  He  does  not  any- 
where besides. 

We  must  work;  but  the  kingdom  of  God  cometh 


50  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

not  with  observation.  There  is  a  world  to  convert, 
and  it  means  toil  and  thought  and  trouble;  but  it 
means  more:  that  those  who  aim  at  a  supernatural 
result  must  be  supernatural  themselves,  and  realise 
that  their  fellow-workers  are  not  all  visible  on 
platforms,  on  committees,  or  even  in  pulpits,  or  to  be 
heard  in  books  and  newspapers.  The  Church's 
claim  lies  in  what  she  is,  not  in  what  the  most 
eloquent  tongue  can  say  of  her;  it  is  a  finer  work  to 
help  in  making  true  the  best  that  could  be  said  of  her 
effect  upon  her  children  than  to  run  about  declaring 
what  that  effect  is. 


SACRAMENTS  AND  SPECTACLES 

DURING  many  years  of  the  Victorian  age, 
England  was  indulged  with  very  little  in 
the  way  of  public  spectacle.  The  Great 
Exhibition  was  followed  all  too  soon  by  the  death  of 
the  Queen's  Consort,  and,  though  his  widow  relaxed 
nothing  of  her  indefatigable  attention  to  public 
affairs,  and  remained  devoted  as  ever  to  work,  she 
had  lost  heart  for  great  ceremonial  displays. 
During  a  period  longer  than  many  reigns  her  public 
appearances  were  few,  and  they  were  mostly  sur- 
rounded with  a  minimum  of  state  and  splendour. 
London  was  almost  left  to  its  Lord  Mayor's  Show 
for  gratification  of  the  citizens'  taste  for  spectacular 
effects. 

But,  almost  suddenly,  the  last  quarter  of  the  old 
century  and  the  first  decade  of  the  new  saw  a  remark- 
able change :  the  two  Jubilees  were  celebrated  with 
an  entirely  new  magnificence;  there  were  many  other 
great  Royal  functions;  and  then,  in  all  too  brief  suc- 
cession, followed  two  Coronations,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  sad  but  grandiose  ceremonial  of  the  two  Royal 
funerals. 

Since  1887  it  has  appeared  how  fond  the  English 
people  may  become  of  show  and  spectacle,  and  that 
fondness  has  been  indulged  by  a  number  of  Royal 

51 


52  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

functions,  State  or  semi-State,  and  of  other  great 
displays,  municipal  and  otherwise.  The  new 
England  has  been  showing,  in  many  ways,  how  much 
it  likes  to  look  at  things — foreign  fleets  and 
potentates,  Indian  troops  and  princes,  emperors, 
kings,  presidents,  and,  now,  the  cinematograph. 

'Tis  a  natural  fondness,  and  no  one  should  want 
to  scold  it.  The  Catholic  Church  has  ever  recog- 
nised its  existence  and  has  consistently  indulged 
it  in  her  own  magnificence  of  ritual.  Her  mission 
is  to  make  man  what  he  should  be,  but  she  never 
aims  at  doing  this  by  ignoring  what  he  is.  To  do 
that  latter  thing  is  quite  easy,  and  doing  it  may  save 
a  good  deal  of  trouble:  to  behave  as  though  men 
were  angels,  without  passions  or  senses,  requires  no 
wonderful  gifts;  it  only  implies  a  lack  of  insight,  and 
a  certain  dulness  of  sympathy.  If,  these  lazy  critics 
urge,  men  were  truly  spiritual,  they  would  not  need 
or  desire  a  ritual  of  worship  visible  and  audible; 
perhaps,  but  it  is  no  matter  of  uncertainty  that 
man,  on  the  whole,  has  never  yet  given  proofs  of 
having  attained  to  perfect  spirituality;  and  the 
kindly  Mother  takes  him  as  he  is,  while  gently  lead- 
ing him  on  to  what  she  would  make  him  if  he  would 
suffer  her.  That  he  is  no  angel,  of  a  purely  spiri- 
tual being,  she  knows:  he  has  eyes  and  ears,  and  he 
will  fill  both,  for  he  has  an  eye-hunger  and  an  ear- 
hunger,  as  well  as  the  stomach-hunger  that  no  one 
pretends  should  be  ignored.  She  will  not  leave  him 
coldly  alone  to  fill  eye  and  ear  with  nothing  beautiful 
in  which  she  has  any  share.     There  is,  of  course 


SACRAMENTS  AND  SPECTACLES  53 

the  clean  beauty  of  Nature,  with  all  her  lovely  infini- 
tude of  exquisite  sights  and  sounds  and  smells;  but 
the  Church  will  not  behave  as  if  all  men  lived  within 
reach  of  Nature's  wealth,  or  as  if  all  possessed  a 
sense  which  no  experience  of  theirs  has  ever 
awakened  or  fostered;  millions  of  her  children  are 
penned  in  huge  towns — she  cannot  leave  thein  to 
guess  of  the  beauty  of  the  Creator  by  the  glory  of 
the  things  created;  the  first  Author  of  beauty  is 
lovelier  than  them  all,  but  they  can  never  see  those 
things.  And  yet,  in  them  also  lies  the  dormant 
sense  of  beauty  and  dignity  of  show:  sunrise  on  sea 
or  hill  they  never  see,  nor  spring's  rapture  of  resur- 
rection, but  they  have  eyes,  too,  and  ears,  though 
to  them  never  comes  the  sound  of  the  sea's  song 
along  the  summer  shore,  the  lark's  hymn  "from 
heaven's  gate,  or  near  it,"  the  poignant  ecstasy  cf 
nightingale  from  moonlit  river-meads,  the  cry  of 
pheasant,  or  love-croon  of  dove  "from  out  the 
woven  copse."  Shall  she  forget  them?  Shall  she 
hold  herself  with  a  proud  affectation  that  all  are 
rich,  or  set  in  the  sweet  heart  of  quiet  country  places : 
that  fair  spectacle  and  noble  melody  are  not  needful 
to  the  poor,  or  appreciable  by  them?  God's  gifts 
of  loveliness  are  given  already,  she  cannot  give  them 
over  again;  she  cannot  heal  man's  dire  necessity,  or 
greed,  or  vanity,  that  drives  him  from  them;  what 
she  can  she  does.  She  surrounds  the  worship  of 
Him  with  a  tribute  to  His  sovereignty.  His  Eter- 
nal Majesty  has  a  right  to  all  that  ephemeral  royalty 
claims;  and  to  render  it,  even  in  these  outward  things 


54  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

of  sight  and  sound,  is  inevitable  to  her  generous, 
loving  loyalty.  There  is  no  pompous  self-glorifica- 
tion in  it  all,  no  pride  of  her  own;  no  one  accuses  the 
Viceroy  of  ambition  in  his  splendid  state,  it  is  all 
meant  for  the  far-away,  invisible  King.  The 
representative,  for  the  moment,  of  Imperial  Majesty 
in  India  does  not,  by  gorgeous  spectacle  of  which  he 
is  the  centre,  render  himself  suspect  of  disloyalty 
or  of  ambitious  vanity;  he  holds  the  Vice-regal  seat 
to-day,  another  to-morrow,  the  real  Emperor  Is 
distant  but  not  forgotten,  and  all  the  splendour  of 
his  representative  is  but  an  evidence  and  reminder 
of  his  right  and  majesty.  And  so  it  is  with  the 
Church  and  her  ancient,  immemorial  grandeur  of 
ceremonial;  it  is  all  a  part  of  a  Vice-regal  tribute  to 
the  King  Eternal,  and  finds  its  supreme  expression  in 
the  dignities  of  the  King's  Viceroy  on  earth,  himself. 
But  while  thinking  first  of  G'od,  and  bearing 
tribute  in  all  her  ceremonial,  in  the  first  place,  to  His 
'Majesty,  the  Church  never  forgets  man,  and  to 
make  him  remember  is  her  secondary,  but  great 
purpose.  It  is  like  the  first  and  great  command- 
ment, and  the  other  like  to  it.  "But  God  needs  no 
tribute  such  as  this."  What  tribute  does  He  need? 
Would  He  be  God  if  He  needed  anything?  Would 
they  who  urge  this  shallow  plea  against  the  solem- 
nity of  exterior  worship  declare  that  God  would  not 
be  God  if  every  soul  were  lost?  Yet  to  save  one 
soul  He  would  not  grudge  His  own  death  at  the 
hands  of  the  men  He  made?  Should  these  little 
things  be  grudged  if  the  common  run  of  common 


SACRAMENTS  AND  SPECTACLES  55 

men  are  helped  even  a  little  by  them?  Grant  they 
are  a  condescendence  to  human  infirmity — the 
Church  is  full  of  it;  half  her  business  is  condescend- 
ence, and  the  other  half  encouragement.  It  is  her- 
esy that  will  not  condescend,  but  bids  man  be  an 
angel  forthwith  or  accept  the  instant  alternative  of 
damnation.  The  Church  is  a  Mother  with  every 
sort  of  child,  and  she  will  not  shoulder  out  the  im- 
perfect, though  the  perfect  reflect  her  inner  mind 
and  heart.  Her  patience  has  to  last  as  long  as  the 
world,  and  the  world  is  not  yet  a  thing  of  the  past. 
There  are  those  who  see  God;  but  there  are  those 
who  could  never  conceive  of  Him  without  a  picture 
to  hint  of  something  in  some  one  or  two  things  sug- 
gestive of  him — ^His  power  in  one  picture,  His 
tenderness  in  another,  His  sovereignty  here.  His 
humility  there,  His  awful  self-sacrifice  in  the 
simplest  of  all.  And  of  these  folk  she  has  a 
constant  mind  in  all  her  year-long  procession  of 
ceremonial.  By  eye  and  ear  she  will  lead  them, 
by  the  heart  as  well  as  by  the  intellect.  It  is  not  her 
affectation  to  assume  that  man  is  a  brain  on  two 
crutches.  God's  existence  may  be  proved  by  reason, 
but  man's  salvation  is  not  forced  by  any  syllogism. 
He  is  "man  and  capable  of  his  nature;  few  are 
angels;"  he  looks  and  listens.  She  will  not  scold 
him  down  and  bid  him  argue  only;  she  sets  things 
before  his  eyes  and  fills  his  ear  with  sweet  strains, 
that  by  those  two  homely  avenues  she  may  enter  to 
his  odd,  man-filled,  God-created  heart.  Her  theory 
is  to  fill  what  else  would  be  left  vacant  for  this  visible 


56  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

world  to  fill  up  and  occupy.  For  this  condescendence 
the  heartless  gibe  at  her;  because  man  is  half  ma- 
terial, and  ev^en  the  material  half  she  will  preoccupy 
for  God  if  she  can,  she  is  dubbed  material  and  un- 
spiritual  herself.  Were  the  starven  anchorites  ma- 
terialists— and  who  decries  them?  Is  it  the  Church 
that  scoffs  at  Simeon  on  his  pillar,  at  the  gaunt  her- 
mit in  his  cave  among  the  hills?  It  is  not  she  who 
insists  that  mortification  of  sense  must  mean  misery; 
it  is  not  she  who  talks  as  though  happiness  were  im- 
possible to  an  un-indulged  stomach.  They  who 
scold  her  for  indulging  the  material  side  of  man  by 
her  ceremonial  worship  are  the  same  who  condemn 
her  for  not  condemning  her  Carthusians;  as  though 
materiality  lay  only  in  the  eyes  and  ears,  and  the  pal- 
ate and  stomach  were  purely  spiritual  organs. 

She  insists  that  God's  grace  can  make  man  tri- 
umph over  humanity  itself;  but  she  will  not  pretend 
that  human  nature  is  in  the  main  angelic.  And  to 
human  tastes  she  will  condescend  that  by  their  means 
also  man  may  be  led  to  think  of  God;  the  world  has 
Its  music  for  man's  ears,  she  will  have  hers  to  carry 
the  name  of  God  where  else  It  might  never  come; 
the  world  shall  not  have  all  the  fine  sights  at  which 
men  love  to  look,  she  must  have  hers  to  remind  him 
of  another  King,  whose  subjects  they  all  are.  Such 
things  are,  urges  the  shallow,  scornful  critic,  but 
toys,  and  the  grown  man  needs  none.  But  this 
Mother  does  not  pretend  that  all  her  children  are 
grown  up;  the  most  of  us  attain  our  full  manhood 
only  in  eternity.     And  some  of  those  who  here  are 


SACRAMENTS  AND  SPECTACLES  57 

proudest  of  their  adult  manliness  lack  the  grace  to 
know  how  sacred  a  toy  may  be  to  a  child. 

But,  though  the  Church  indulges  her  children  in 
that  taste  for  spectacles  which  nations  allow  them- 
selves, she  would  be  ill-satisfied  were  they  to  be 
content  with  them.  They  are  only  a  means  to  an 
end:  on  the  one  hand  a  recognition  of  God's  Sover- 
eignty, and  so  a  due  act  of  homage  from  His  lieges, 
a  reminder  to  them  of  their  debt  towards  an  in- 
visible King;  and  on  the  other  hand  a  condescen- 
dence to  a  very  general  need  of  men,  by  whose  help 
they  may  be  lifted  out  of  the  flatness  of  dull  or 
common  things  to  some  remembrance  of  Eternal 
beauty. 

A  nation  may,  however,  become  too  fond  of 
pageants  or  fall  into  too  dependent  an  indulgence 
of  its  taste  for  them;  and,  should  this  happen,  the 
effect  on  national  character  would  be  enervating.  A 
people  may  become  so  given  to  spectacles,  may 
acquire  so  morbid  a  craving  for  the  excitement  of 
watching  games  or  shows,  that  it  leaves  its  business 
undone,  or  suffers  others  to  do  its  business  for  it. 

And  individuals  are  subject  to  the  same  danger, 
since  nations  are  only  very  large  groups  of  indi- 
viduals, and  what  would  hurt  the  big  group  will  hurt 
its  members  one  by  one. 

The  Church  would  not  think  him  a  satisfactory 
Catholic  whose  religious  acts  consisted  in  watching 
her  ceremonial,  as  it  were,  from  outside.  He  has 
his  business  also,  a  spiritual  business,  to  do  himself, 
and,  should  he  absorb  himself  exclusively  in  an  en- 


58  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

joyment  of  ecclesiastical  pageantry,  he  would  be  apt 
to  leave  that  business  undone,  or  trust  to  someone 
else  doing  it  all  for  him. 

The  countless  ceremonies  of  the  Church's  year 
are  used  best  when  they  are  used  as  a  sort  of  sacra- 
mentals,  but  they  can  never  be  sacraments,  or  do 
the  work  of  sacraments.  And  this  some  people  are 
willing  to  forget.  It  is  much  easier  to  indolence  to 
watch  than  to  act,  and  far  more  congenial  to  a  skin- 
deep  spirituality  to  frequent  ceremonies  than  to 
frequent  the  Sacraments.  You  will  find  many  very 
willing  even  to  carry  something  in  a  procession  who 
want  a  great  deal  of  persuading  to  go  to  Confession 
and  Holy  Communion.  No  doubt  the  taking  part 
in  the  procession,  even  as  onlookers,  without  carry- 
ing anything,  does  draw  many  to  the  Sacraments, 
partly  by  force,  as  it  were,  of  mere  reminder,  partly 
by  the  operation  of  graces  of  which  the  procession 
is  the  occasion;  but  it  is  true  also  that  some  will  take 
part  in  the  procession  without  being  moved  to 
confess  their  sins  and  receive  the  Blessed  Sacrament. 
That  is  not  saying  that  in  their  case  the  taking  part  in 
the  procession  is  quite  useless,  a  merely  empty,  out- 
ward act,  without  any  spiritual  result:  every  religious 
act  is  good  for  religion;  and  among  such  acts  there  is 
an  incalculable  gradation — from  that  of  the  most 
perfect  who  takes  part  in  it,  down  to  that  of  the  most 
imperfect:  even  in  the  lowest  case  the  outward 
participation  must  serve  as  a  reminder,  must  help 
to  keep  up  a  certain  intimacy  with  the  Church  and 
her  faith,  must  tend  to  ward  off  estrangement  and 


SACRAMENTS  AND  SPECTACLES  59 

coldness.  And  the  Church  will  never  quench  the 
flax  that  only  smokes.  She  will  not  obey  the  chill 
admonition  of  hard  and  unloving  critics  who  cry  out : 
"That  fellow  is  not  much  of  a  Christian,  even  your 
Christianity  he  does  not  practise;  he  fights  shy  of 
your  sacraments — and  will  only  come  to  church 
when  there  is  something  fine  to  see;  what  business 
has  he  walking  with  a  banner,  or  a  torch,  in  his  hand? 
Why  do  you  not  send  him  off?" 

Were  all  they  who  cast  their  garments  before 
Christ,  and  tore  down  branches  from  the  way-side 
trees  to  strew  His  path  withal,  in  the  grace  of  God? 
Who  can  tell?  But  we  know  this,  that  He  forbade 
none  of  them,  and  sent  none  of  them  coldly  away. 
It  may  have  been  but  an  outward  tribute  with  many 
of  them,  but  He  did  not  refuse  or  scorn  it.  Never- 
theless, it  is  true  that  the  Church  wants  her  gcvod 
things  to  be  used  in  the  best  manner:  she  will  snatch 
no  crumb  out  of  any  mouth,  but  she  longs  to  give 
fuller  food.  And  the  business  of  the  faithful  is  to 
watch  her  upward-pointing  finger  without  waiting 
for  her  hand  to  scourge.  So  that  they  who  are 
content  to  indulge  themselves  with  ceremonies,  and 
hold  still  aloof  from  sacraments,  are  but  dull  chil- 
dren, surface-listeners  whose  ears  are  filled  with 
sounds  and  keep  hearts  empty  of  their  noble  mean- 
ings; and  silly,  too,  for  it  is  a  fool's  part  to  grasp  the 
pretty  wrappings  of  a  great  gift,  and  fling  the  gift 
aside. 

The  wordly-wise  are  not  imprudent  thus,  in  their 
generation;  when  they  know  what  is  worth  most, 


6o  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

they  will  not  seize  what  looks  finest  instead.  But 
some  of  us  are  foolish  fellows,  and,  because  there  is 
little  show  about  a  sacrament — how  simple  a  thing 
is  the  giving  of  Holy  Communion,  how  plain  is  the 
brief.  Divine  Word  of  Absolution ! — we  hke  better 
to  walk  in  a  procession,  or  take  our  ticket  for  a 
pilgrimage.  Not,  again,  that  we  are  to  leave  these 
last  undone,  but  that  we  must  not,  on  pain  of  blind- 
ness, leave  the  former  undone. 

Long  ago  a  quiet  voice  said  that  they  who  go  on 
many  pilgrimages  do  not  soon  become  perfect  men. 
We  know  he  did  not  mean  that  pilgrimage  is  not  a 
special  means  of  grace :  but  there  are  greater,  and 
they  lie  to  the  hand  of  each,  the  poorest  and  the  most 
home-bound.  It  would  be  odd  indeed  if  God  suf- 
fered the  greatest  means  of  grace  to  be  the  most 
costly — we  know  He  does  not — the  most  priceless 
cost  nothing,  and  are  as  easy  to  the  penniless  as  to 
the  rich. 

In  some  "Poor"  Missions  you  shall  hear  those 
who  love  to  excuse  themselves  complaining  that 
there  is  not  this  or  that;  that  some  fair  function 
they  have  seen  elsewhere  is  not  to  be  seen  where  they 
are;  that  some  splendour  of  ritual,  some  richness  of 
decoration,  some  magnificence  of  setting  they  have 
admired  in  another  place,  is  lacking  there — as  if 
the  ceremonial  were  more  than  its  centre;  as  if  Jesus 
Christ  in  the  White  Raiment  of  His  Love-Prison 
depended  for  His  Majesty  on  trappings  that  form 
no  part  of  Himself.  By  no  people  is  the  patience 
of  the  most  patient  priest  more  hardly  tried:  they 


SACRAMENTS  AND  SPECTACLES  6i 

do  not  perceive  that  they  are  snobs  of  religion, 
though  they  are  keen  enough  at  noting  the  snobbery 
of  those  who  are  dazzled  by  the  fine  feathers  of  the 
world's  fine  birds,  and  think  more  of  a  man  because 
his  house  or  his  clothes  are  sumptuous.  They  can- 
not, or  will  not,  themselves  remember  that  a  king 
in  a  mean  hovel  makes  a  more  potent  appeal  to  real 
loyalty  than  when  he  is  in  his  palace,  surrounded 
with  all  the  outward  signs  of  majesty.  They  can 
condemn  the  sycophancy  of  earthly  courtiers,  that 
love  to  stand  near  jewelled  thrones,  while  themselves 
are  in  the  same  case,  holding  aloof  from  their  King 
till  they  can  see  Him  in  a  grander  place  with  finer 
things  about  Him. 


MIRACLES— OR  "SUCH-LIKE 
FOOLERIES" 

COWPER,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  is  the  only 
writer  of  eminence  who  ever  set  down  in 
black  and  white  that  the  great  lexicographer 
was  a  coxcomb,  and  it  is  probable  he  did  not  use  the 
term  in  any  of  the  senses  attached  to  it  by  the  doctor 
himself  in  his  dictionary.  For  he  could  hardly  have 
meant  to  call  him  either  a  "fop  or  a  superficial 
pretender." 

Most  of  us  remember  in  what  terms  Macaulay 
speaks  of  Johnson's  unreadiness  to  believe  reports 
of  extraordinary  occurrences  in  the  natural  order, 
and  of  his  credulity  in  the  case  of  events  of  which 
there  could  be  only  a  supernatural  explanation. 
But,  possibly,  the  great  essayist  did  not  quite  appre- 
ciate the  great  lexicographer's  point  of  view: 
Macaulay  disliked  the  supernatural,  and  Johnson 
didn't.  Johnson  may  have  been  willing  to  admit 
the  truth  of  a  supernatural  occurrence  the  evidence 
for  which  would  strike  Macaulay  as  utterly  insuffi- 
cient; but  then  would  Macaulay  ever  have  admitted 
as  sufficient  the  evidence  for  any  event  which  could 
only  be  explained  as  being  supernatural?  No  one 
is  surprised  if  a  man  who  believes  all  war  to  be 
unjustifiable  decides  at  once  on  the  injustice  of  any 

62 


MIRACLES— OR  "SUCH-LIKE  FOOLERIES"      63 

particular  war  of  which  there  is  question.  Johnson 
was  one  of  those  to  whom  the  unseen  world  is  a 
reality  as  actual  as  anything  the  senses  perceive:  to 
him  the  world  of  spirits  was  not  a  phrase,  but  an 
immovable  fact.  And  his  mind  was  singularly 
reverent;  nothing  was  more  repugnant  to  it  than  the 
ordinary  smug  readiness  to  rule  out  whatever  lies 
outside  the  mere  limits  of  common  experience.  He 
could  not  admit  that  Omnipotence  has  nothing  to  do 
with  modern  life,  or  that  what  did  not  happen  yester- 
day, and  will  probably  not  happen  again  to-morrow, 
cannot  have  happened  to-day. 

That  some  of  the  supposed  circumstances  which 
he  was  ready  to  believe  might  have  occurred  should 
rather  be  described  as  preternatural  than  super- 
natural may  be  true  enough:  but  it  is,  perhaps,  as 
true  that  Macaulay  would  have  been  as  impatient 
of  one  as  of  the  other:  both,  to  his  taste,  would 
have  been  tarred  with  the  same  brush — the  brush  of 
impossibility.  A  ghost  and  a  miracle  would  have 
annoyed  him  equally.  No  evidence  would  have 
convinced  him  of  either,  because  both,  in  his  estimate 
would  be  impossible. 

The  Catholic  Church  is  not  specially  addicted  to 
ghosts:  if  a  census  of  them  could  be  taken  I  suspect 
it  would  be  found  that  the  ghostly  population  of 
Catholic  countries  would  be  vastly  out-num.bered  by 
that  of  Reformation  countries.  Scotland,  England, 
the  Scandinavian  Kingdoms,  and  the  Protestant 
States  of  Germany  are  thickly  populated  with  ghosts. 
Rome  is  singularly  deficient. 


64  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

But  then  in  Reformation  countries  they  are  free 
from  miracles:  you  can't  have  everything.  Scot- 
land, in  addition  to  its  enormous  ghostly  population, 
has  the  second  sight,  and  it  was  more  generously 
supplied  with  witches  till  quite  recent  times  than  any 
other  region  in  Europe,  though  Protestant  New 
England  ran  it  very  close  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries. 

'But  If  the  Catholic  Church  is  not  peculiarly 
addicted  to  ghosts  it  is  addicted  to  miracles.  That 
is  one  of  its  spots,  and,  like  the  leopard,  it  v/IU  not 
change  them,  possibly  for  the  same  reason — the 
leopard  did  not  invent  his  spots,  but  accepts  them  as 
a  part  of  the  Divine  plan  In  his  regard. 

What  Is  the  real  objection  to  miracles? 

Why  is  it  held  so  offensive  a  feature  in  the 
Catholic  view  of  things  that  they  are  there 
"tolerated"?  A  belief  in  them — I.  e.,  a  beUef  that 
they  can  still  happen,  and  do  still  happen — is  still 
commonly  assumed  as  an  instance  of  the  mental 
imbecility  inherent  in  out  and  out  Catholics:  a  proof 
of  their  uncritical,  unpractical  outlook  on  the 
world,  of  their  inferior  masculinity  of  intellect — in  a 
word,  of  their  superstitiousness. 

Are  "ghosts"  then  a  distinctly  Catholic  Institu- 
tion? Are  Catholics  the  only  people  who  will  not 
sit  down  thirteen  to  dinner;  who  are  upset  by  seeing 
crossed  knives  on  a  table;  who  object  to  seeing  the 
new  moon  through  a  window;  who  are  pleased  to  see 
two  magpies  In  a  field  but  worried  If  they  only  see 
one;  who  touch  wood  to  propitiate  Nemesis  when 


MIRACLES— OR  "SUCH-LIKE  FOOLERIES"      65 

they  have  boasted  of  good  health  or  fortune;  who 
disHke  dreaming  of  a  wedding;  who  are  complacent 
when  they  bark  their  shins  by  falHng  upstairs,  but 
cross  with  the  housemaid  for  meeting  them  there; 
who  will  come  down  to  breakfast,  wreathed  with 
smiles  of  expectant  prosperit)^  in  a  waistcoat  inside 
out,  because  they  so  put  it  on  by  genuine  inadver- 
tance;  who  throw  rice  and  old  shoes  after  a  bride; 
who  used  to  carry  a  mutton-bone  in  their  pocket  to 
keep  off  cramp;  who  wish  when  they  pull  a  lucky 
bone? 

Is  the  second  sight  a  Roman  accomplishment  or  a 
Scottish,  and  did  the  second  sight  disappear  from 
Scotland  with  the  advent  of  the  glorious  Knox? 
But  all  these  superstitions  have  received  Protestant 
toleration,  and  why?  Because  they  happen  to  be 
merely  unreasonable,  and  to  have  no  justification  by 
faith.  They  are  inexplicable  by  reason,  and  a 
miracle  is  not:  so  they  are  pardonable  and  a  miracle 
isn't. 

If  you  are  pleased  by  seeing  a  compact  group  of 
bubbles  on  the  surface  of  your  tea,  and  eat  it  with 
your  spoon,  expecting  money,  you  render  no  tribute 
to  Omnipotence:  a  little  sacrifice  on  the  world-old 
altar  of  folly  is  merely  amiable  and  prettily  old- 
fashioned.  It  is  not  simply  old-fashioned  to  believe 
in  Omnipotence  not  obsolete,  but  a  servile 
recognition  of  a  King  In  exile:  to  confess  the 
possibility  of  a  miracle  In  the  next  street  is  to  lift 
the  standard  of  an  effete  Power,  as  though  you 
should  move  back  the  clock  to  Israelitish  days,  when 


66  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

a  pillar  of  cloud  by  day,  and  a  pillar  of  fire  by  night, 
proved  to  a  people  wandering  in  the  Desert  of  Sin 
that  they  had  a  leader  greater  than  Moses. 

Archaism  in  itself  is  not  objected  to:  but  a  form 
of  archaism  that  must  imply  recognition  of  uncur- 
tailed  Omnipotence  is  thoroughly  objectionable  to 
the  modern  world. 

The  original  attitude  of  non-Catholics  was  that 
of  disbelief  in  modern  miracles:  only  those  recorded 
in  the  Bible  could  be  admitted:  but  those  recorded 
there  must  be  believed.  That  position  is  rapidly 
being  abandoned,  for  there  is  a  Nemesis  of  logic 
more  inexorable  than  that  of  fate.  And  the 
Catholic  Church,  which  for  centuries  was  assumed 
to  be  all  against  the  Bible,  and  frightened  of  it,  is 
quickly  succeeding  to  the  position  of  its  heir  by 
default:  she  will  soon  be  the  only  champion  of  its 
integrity:  she,  who  was  supposed  to  weaken  the 
splendour  of  the  scriptural  miracles  by  permitting 
rival  miracles  in  modern  life,  will  presently  be  the 
only  defender  of  the  reality  and  truth  of  those  Bible 
miracles. 

But  those  who  will  no  longer  believe  in  any 
miracles,  because  they  have  ceased  to  believe  in 
Omnipotence,  are  often  willing  to  believe  in 
fooleries.  Palmistry,  Crystal-gazing,  Astrology 
gain  more  and  more  adherents  as  faith  loses  them. 
It  is  not  because  a  belief  in  miracles  is  unreasonable 
that  such  a  belief  is  unpopular;  for,  admitting  the 
existence   of   Omnipotence,    the  belief  in   them   is 


MIRACLES— OR  "SUCH-LIKE  FOOLERIES"      67 

simply  reasonable  and  logical:  the  unpopularity  of 
the  belief  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  a  part  of  the 
logic  of  faith.  Nor  is  the  belief  in  miracles  scorned 
because  it  is  superstitious;  superstition  lies  in  attrib- 
uting effects  to  causes  incapable  of  producing  them 
and  there  is  nothing  superstitious  in  admitting  that 
Omnipotence  can  do  anything,  in  the  latest  as  in  the 
earliest  ages. 

Cheiromancy,  Crystal-gazing,  Astrology,  and  such 
like,  are  popular  because  they  are  superstitions :  they 
have  nothing  to  do  with  God;  and  they  attribute 
effects  to  causes  that  have  no  existence  as  such.  Nor 
are  they  popular  because  they  are  capable  of  a 
scientific  explanation.  If  any  scientific  explanation 
were  forthcoming  they  would  lose  popularity  instead 
of  gaining  it.  A  cheiromantist  who  confined  himself 
to  saying  that  a  man's  character  is  expressed  in  his 
hand,  as  it  is  in  his  face,  would  have  few  devotees: 
he  makes  his  money  by  pretending  to  read  the  future 
of  his  devotee  in  the  lines  if  his  palm.  Crystal- 
gazing  is  believed  in  by  those  who  in  it  imagine 
something  inexplicable  by  reason;  that  belief  in  ir 
is  contrary  to  reason,  loses  it  no  adepts  and  no 
devotees.  Astrology  is  not  less  admired  because 
science  declares  that  the  Constellations  have,  and  can 
have,  no  influence  on  the  character  or  destiny  of  men. 

Those  who  are  too  modern  to  believe  in  the 
archaism  of  such  miracles  as  the  Church  declares  to 
be  possible,  are  delighted  to  believe  in  what  science 
and  reason  alike  declare  to  be  impossible,  because 


68  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

the  former  imply  unchanging  Omnipotence,  to  which 
all  creation  is  subject,  and  the  latter  implies  the 
existence  of  blind  forces,  helpless  themselves,  bu^ 
potent  to  ruin  the  happiness  and  innocence  of  men. 


OF  MAJORITIES 

OF  all  stupid  vulgarities  and  sycophancles 
none,  as  It  seems  to  me,  Is  much  more 
stupid,  vulgar,  and  sycophantic  than  the 
abject  prostration  of  the  present  age  before 
majorities  as  such.  If  different  ages,  as  has  always 
been  assumed,  have  had  their  special  virtues  and 
their  special  vices,  there  seems  no  reason  why  they 
should  not  also  have  their  special  vulgarities. 

There  may  have  been  times  when  society  abased 
itself  before  the  thrones  on  which  tyrants  sat:  but 
perhaps  prostration  was  then  mainly  practised  by 
courtiers,  and  they  may  have  had  the  excuse  of 
believing  that  they  could  not  help  themselves:  to 
flatter  Nero,  Caligula,  or  Caracalla  may  have 
seemed  to  their  unhappy  servants  but  a  venial  con- 
descension to  sheer  necessity,  since  they  largely  did 
it  In  the  desperate  hope  of  saving  themselves  from 
death  and  torture.  And  in  some  instances  there  is 
a  healthy  suggestion  of  irony  In  the  compliments 
addressed  to  omnipotent  ill-temper,  as  when  the 
Chaldeans  cried  to  the  Babylonian  tyrant,  "O  King, 
live  for  ever!"  which  happened  to  be  the  one  thing 
which  he  could  not  do,  as  they  knew,  and  he  knew 
that  they  knew. 

In  later  ages,  when  the  thirst  of  certain  nations 

69 


70  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

for  liberty  had  clipped  royalty  of  many  of  its 
prerogatives,  the  privileges  of  monarchs  were 
commonly  assumed  to  be  in  commission,  and  great 
Whig  lords  put  on  the  halo  of  which  they  had 
stripped  their  masters.  Flatteries  as  fulsome  as 
any  ever  offered  to  Emperors  and  Kings  were 
lavished  on  glorious  beings  who  wore  only  coronets. 
The  flatterers  could  not  now  allege  fear  and  neces- 
sity, but  they  mostly  did  it  for  what  they  hoped  to 
get  out  of  it.  Patronage  was  held  tight  in  the  fists 
of  these  guardians  of  the  liberties  of  England:  and 
those  who  flattered  need  not  have  been  blind,  but 
merely  alive  to  the  advantages  of  pensions  and 
places.  They  set,  however,  a  fashion,  and  it  was 
followed,  as  fashions  are,  by  many  who  had  not 
anything  definite  to  make  by  it:  anybody  powerful 
enough  to  start  a  mode,  but  unluckily  short  of  one 
eye,  may  set  a  fashion  of  wearing  the  hair  so  as  to 
conceal  the  empty  orbit:  of  the  thousands  who 
follow  it  all  but  a  few  must  be  depriving  themselves 
of  half  their  vision.  So  arose  that  national 
characteristic  of  snobbery  out  of  which  one  of  the 
greatest  of  our  writers  has  made  a  literature.  But 
the  Book  of  Snobs,  though  immortal,  is  obsolete  or 
nearly:  if  Thackery  were  here  to-day,  and  inclined 
to  risk  a  sequel,  it  would  not  concern  itself  much 
with  lords  and  their  meek  adorers — "faint  but  pur- 
suing." No  one  would  now  think  a  celestial 
paradise  attained  by  walking  down  Piccadilly  arm- 
in-arm  with  two  lords:  a  snobbish  Duke  would 
merely  long  to  stroll  through  limehouse  with  a 


OF  MAJORITIES  71 

local  vot^r  linked  to  each  elbow.  Of  course  there 
is  the  cult  of  wealth — apart  from  the  greed  of 
possessing  It.  The  worship  Is,  no  doubt,  of  ancient 
prescription;  but  Its  liturgy,  as  enshrined  In  the 
Canon  of  the  daily  Press,  is  more  fulsome,  more 
abject,  more  shameless,  and  more  cynical  than  it 
ever  was  before.  That  is  one  reason  why  the 
taste  for  high  poetry  and  for  high  romance  Is  almost 
extinct:  the  Golden  Calf  Is  the  most  arid  theme  for 
poets  and  romanticists;  sapless  of  all  inspiration. 
It  is  ignored  by  all  Inspired  singing  and  all  romance 
gilt  with  the  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land.  A 
Press  that  grovels  and  slavers  before  millions  of 
sovereigns  is  Incomparably  meaner  than  the  trem- 
bling flatterer  of  an  omnipotently  cruel  sovereign 
before  whom  he  bowed  simply  to  save  his  life.  And 
the  same  Press  that  chaunts  the  Apotheosis  of  brutal 
wealth  is  as  ready  to  proclaim  the  Infallibility  of 
equally  brutal  majorities. 

In  both  cases  the  ugly  cult  proceeds  from  the 
same  cause.  There  is  an  instinct  in  the  human 
animal  for  omnipotence :  and  God-given  instincts, 
forbidden  to  tend  whither  they  were  meant,  lie  open 
to  perversions  the  reverse  of  Divine.  Thus  men, 
taught  to  disbelieve  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
reach  out  ever  more  wistful  fingers  after  some  sub- 
stitute, as  for  the  Immortality  of  names  and  deeds: 
and  even  the  outcast  and  the  criminal  will  strive  to 
snatch  from  the  prurient  curiosity  of  the  only  world 
they  know  an  Immortality  of  ignominy.  And  the 
modern  Press  helps  them,  as  they  know  It  will. 


72  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

In  the  same  way  the  modern  confusion  of  masses 
of  population  that  we  are  to  call  Society  has  decided 
to  eliminate  the  idea  of  Divine  omnipotence:  if  the 
idea  persists  it  must  be  as  a  private  idea,  an  idiosyn- 
cracy  (and  heavily  taxable)  :  there  is  to  be  no  public 
recognition  of  it:  and  yet  there  is  the  innate  longing 
for  omnipotence,  somewhere,  somehow.  So  the 
omnipotence  of  wealth  is  cajoled  by  people  who  are 
more  impatient  of  poverty  than  any  ever  were  till 
now,  who  think  shame  of  poverty,  and  cry  shame  on 
riches,  and,  with  greedy  hands  outstreched  to  snatch 
and  steal  them,  proclaim  them  the  accursed  thing 
— the  god-devil,  adoring  it  with  horrible  abuse  and 
envy,  with  self-tortures,  agonised  leapings  towards 
it,  and  shrieking  efforts  to  tear  the  golden  idol  down 
and  share  It  piecemeal. 

And  the  windy,  empty  hearts  that  have  exiled 
Divine  omnipotence  profess  to  find  its  heir  in  the 
incoherent  will  of  majorities. 

This  new  flattery  is  as  mean  as  the  old:  It  is  still 
the  prostration  of  those  who  know  that  they  know 
better,  to  a  tyrant:  still  frightened,  cowardly,  abject. 
Only  the  tyrant  has  many  heads,  and  millions  of  dis- 
cordant tongues,  unanimous  never,  except  in  the  de- 
mand for  destruction;  sympathetic  (even  with 
itself),  never,  except  In  the  irritable  clamour  for 
something  new,  for  the  trying  of  some  rare  and 
fatuous  experiment;  and  Ingenious  never,  except  In 
devising  plans  for  the  sapping  of  foundations  no 
matter  what  world-old  fences  and  venerable  edifices 


OF  MAJORITIES  73 

rest  upon  them.  Until  "Pereat"  and  *'Fiat''  mean 
the  same  thing  Vox  Popiili  and  Fox  Dei  will  never 
be  synonymous. 

But  it  is  assumed  that  they  are  the  same  thing: 
or  rather  it  is  assumed  that  Fox  Dei  is  a  delusion, 
because  it  is  assumed  that  Revelation  never  was  Fox 
Dei,  and  never  was  more  than  the  bleating  of  priests 
announcing  their  own  inventions  from  behind  a  veil 
in  a  darkened  sanctuary. 

Just  as  every  age  has  its  peculiarly  out-standing 
virtues,  vices,  and  vulgarities,  so  may  it  have  its 
distinctive  superstitions.  And  the  special  super- 
stition of  this  age  of  ours  is  the  divinity  ascribed  to 
majorities — i.  e.,  to  brute  numbers.  It  is  based  on 
the  mathematical  principle  that  by  multiplying 
nothing  by  millions  you  get  everything.  The  word 
of  one  foolish  person  is  admittedly  silly;  but  by 
adding  to  his  voice  those  of  a  million  others  as  silly 
as  himself,  the  expression  of  infallible  wisdom 
results.  Each  unit  in  the  mob  may  be  brutally 
ignorant,  cruel,  selfish,  greedy,  material,  but  the  sum 
total  of  it  all  must  be  divine. 

This  superstition  had  to  wait  till  faith  had  receded 
from  the  ground  it  was  to  occupy:  and  it  can  never 
seem  very  alluring  to  those  who  hold  the  Catholic 
faith  in  Christ.  Where  was  the  majority  on 
Calvary?  Which  side  did  it  take?  What  was 
it  about?  Have  the  majorities  ever  been  on  God's 
side  since  the  fall  of  man?  Was  it  to  reward  the 
fidelity  of  the  mass   of  mankind   that   the   deluge 


74  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

came?  Were  the  prophets  In  the  majority  or  those 
who  stoned  them?  Has  the  whole  world  ever 
ranged  itself  on  the  side  of  the  Church — does  It 
now? 


OF  YOUTH  AND  EMOTION 

IT  may  no  longer  be  the  fashion  for  elderly 
persons  to  warn  the  young  against  allowing 
themselves  to  be  influenced  by  emotion  and  to 
preach  up  the  glories  of  common  sense.  It  certainly 
was  the  way  when  the  present  writer  was  young  him- 
self. It  seemed,  then,  to  be  an  axiom  of  the  wise, 
i.  e.,  of  those  who  had  turned  forty,  that  "feel- 
ing," emotion,  was  dangerous,  and  an  alm.ost  sure 
guide  to  disaster.  Humble  juniors  succumbed  to 
the  theory;  and,  when  they  felt  anything  very 
strongly,  knew  that  it  behoved  them  to  conceal  the 
fact  till  they  could  cure  it,  else  they  wqjjld  be  be- 
laboured with  that  tedious  axiom.  Emotion  was 
assumed  to  be  a  phase  of  imprudence,  its  seed  or 
embryo. 

It  was  also  insinuated  that  emotion  was  a  weak- 
ness incident  to  youth,  that  should  be  outgrown  as 
rapidly  and  completely  as  possible;  to  havt  out- 
grown it  was  one  of  the  splendours  of  middle-age. 
It  was,  in  fact,  put  in  the  corner,  as  a  youthful 
delinquency. 

No  doubt  there  are  vices  of  youth,  and  some  of 
them  bear  fruit,  with  seasonable  regularity  and  per- 
sistence, long  after  youth  has  gone  for  ever.  Youth 
is  sometimes  selfish,  but  seldom  so  selfish  as  middle- 

75 


76  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

age :  what  was  a  mere  tendency  at  twenty  Is  a  deeply 
cherished  habit  at  forty  or  fifty.  Of  course,  we  are 
to  beware,  in  youth,  the  tendencies  that  will  make 
our  age  abominable.  But  there  are  plenty  of 
elderly  vices  that  never  were,  so  to  speak,  young: 
avarice,  for  instance,  which.  If  ever  seen  in  a  boy, 
is  seen  so  rarely  that  it  almost  makes  a  monster  of 
Its  victim.  Sloth,  again,  seldom  disfigures  a  lad, 
though  it  does  sometimes;  but  it  Is  so  common  as 
hardly  to  seem  a  vice  In  elderly  persons. 

It  is  often  taken  for  granted  that  youth  is  specially 
liable  to  Irreligion,  whereas  it  Is  only  liable  to  a 
peculiar  sort  of  thoughtlessness,  that  Is  apt  to  con- 
cern Itself  chiefly  with  the  visible  and  obvious.  If  a 
census  of  this  sort  could  be  taken,  I  doubt  If  the 
majority  of  really  Irreligious  people  would  be  found 
among  the  young.  A  studious  and  self-conscious 
decorum  has  not  much  to  do  with  religion.  Youth 
is  more  given  to  speaking  out  than  mature  age,  and 
all  our  transient  irritations,  likes  and  dislikes,  will 
not  sound  religious  when  expressed.  Middle-age  Is 
more  cautious  to  express  itself  correctly,  and  has 
more  experience  as  to  what  may  be  said  without 
disapprobation:  It  has  found  the  convenience  of  say- 
ing what  other  people  say,  and  it  mostly  says  It  on 
every  subject,  whether  It  be  art,  literature,  politics, 
ethics  or  religion. 

And  there  Is  the  speech  of  action :  youth  expresses 
itself,  in  this  manner  too,  with  a  more  disconcerting 
frankness  than  age.  Like  Adam  before  che  fall.  It 
Is  naked  and  not  ashamed.     Sometimes  it  acts  like 


OF  YOUTH  AND  EMOTION  77 

Adam  after  the  fall,  and  ought  to  be  ashamed:  but 
so  does  riper  age ;  only  riper  age  has  learned  to  cover 
itself  up.  'When  it  misbehaves  it  does  not  say  so; 
rather  the  contrary. 

I  know  it  is  the  convention  to  talk  as  though  the 
sins  of  sense  were  specially  the  sins  of  youth,  and  it 
is  true  that  they  are  uglier  and  more  disgusting  in 
persons  who  are  no  longer  young.  But  that  they 
are  really  more  common  among  young  men  than 
middle-aged  men  is  assumed  rather  than  proved. 
It  is  the  grace  of  God  that  is  our  sanctuary  from  sin, 
not  any  point  of  life.  Are  the  thoughts  of  the 
middle-aged  and  elderly,  cleaner  than  those  of 
youth?  And  a  man's  thoughts  are  often  a  truer 
picture  of  himself  than  anything  he  does  :  for  no  man 
ever  yet  rose  above  his  highest  thought,  or  fell 
beneath  his  lowest,  and  millions  of  men  are  lower 
than  their  external  conduct,  as  many  are  really 
higher  than  sudden  and  isolated  acts  of  theirs. 

It  is  chiefly  middle-age  that  insists  on  youthful 
faults:  if  youth  retaliated  it  might  have  as  much  to 
say  of  the  mean  and  sordid  soul-smothering  vices  ot 
age:  but  youth  is  mainly  otherwise  employed,  and  it 
has  not  envy  to  egg  It  on.  What  is  there  In 
middle-age  for  youth  to  be  jealous  of?  What 
would  not  age  give  to  be  young  again?  So  age, 
like  the  fox  who  had  lost  his  tail,  Is  at  pains  to 
preach  its  own  superiority — at  more  pains,  for  that 
tail  of  youth  can  never,  by  any  luck  or  solicitude, 
be  made  to  grow  again.  Even  preachers,  I  think, 
fall  Into  the  taint  of  this  convention :  many  are  young 


78  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

enough,  but,  instead  of  letting  out  their  youth  in 
sermons,  they  mostly  assume  a  brevet  of  age,  and 
preach  as  though  they  were  in  the  decline  of  life. 
Elderly  folk  are  assumed  to  be  the  only  listeners, 
except  when  children  are  being  specially  preached  to, 
and  I  can  answer  for  one  child  who  used  to  be 
peculiarly  bored  by  children's  sermons.  Only  very 
old  priests,  and  children  themselves,  know  how  to 
preach  to  children:  young  men  never  can,  but  they 
could  preach  to  young  men  if  they  would. 

The  elderly,  having  mostly  lost  that  tail  of  emo- 
tion, are  in  a  conspiracy  to  declare  its  danger.  They 
do  not  discriminate  much;  nor  is  that  surprising;  it 
is  not  surprising  that  a  Quaker  should  denounce  any 
particular  war,  since  he  holds  all  war  intrinsically 
evil;  and  those  who  have  lost  the  capacity  of  all 
emotion  can  hardly  distinguish  between  one  and 
another.  I  do  not  count  delight  in  a  profitable 
investment  among  emotions,  nor  the  transports  of  a 
Lord  Mayor  over  a  long  over-due  BaVonetcy;  those 
are  sensations  almost  physical  in  their  character. 

Of  course,  there  are  people  who  are  never  middle- 
aged :  in  generous  youth  they  linger  on  till  the  Great 
Hope  dawns  and  makes  them  children  again,  not 
lately  born,  but  on  the  exultant  verge  of  birth.  It 
is  not  they  who  decry  emotion:  it  is  what  has  kept 
their  youth  untarnished.  And  they  know  how  few 
emotions  that  are  real  at  all  can  be  enkindled  by 
what  is  of  less  than  eternal  significance.  If  emotion 
be,  indeed,  a  special  sign  of  youth  it  is  because  youth 
is  nearer  to  the  Eternity  whence  it  was  "struck  out 


OF  YOUTH  AND  EMOTION  79 

as  a  spark,  into  the  organised  glory  of  things,  from 
the  deep  of  the  dark."  They  know  that  the  much- 
vaunted  superiority  to  emotion  is  only  the  final 
wearing-out  of  those  clouds  of  glory  we  trailed  with 
us  whence  we  came :  the  discarding  of  our  intimations 
of  immortality:  a  common  devolution,  mean  and  sor- 
did, nothing  to  brag  of,  but  our  cowardly  comprom- 
ise with  imperfection  and  our  truckling  to  it,  our  ab- 
dication of  ourselves  as  we  might  have  been,  our 
resignation  of  the  crown  we  might  have  v/orn  over 
ourselves,  and  our  recognition  that  the  mastery  in 
ourselves  is  to  belong  to  the  jostling  majority  of 
unideal,  utilitarian  selfishnesses  and  greedinesses. 


OF  EMOTION  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

THOSE  who  cry  down  in  the  young  that 
liability  to  Emotion  which  they  have  them- 
selves outgrown,  are  seldom  at  pains  to 
distinguish:  it  saves  trouble  to  talk  as  if  all  Emotion 
were  pretty  sure  to  be  worthless.  And  yet  their 
own  emancipation  from  it  is  not  in  general  a  proof 
of  their  being  nearer  heaven  than  they  were  in  the 
far-away  days  when  they  too  felt  themselves  up- 
lifted on  its  airy  wings;  but  rather  a  symptom  of 
the  world's  influence,  for  worldliness  and  emotion 
are  sworn  enemies.  That  which  the  Eighteenth 
Century  called  Enthusiasm  was  near  akin  in  spirit 
to  Emotion :  and  when  the  Eighteenth  Century 
spoke  of  enthusiasm  it  usually  meant  the  attitude 
towards  religion  which  is  most  disliked:  a  kind  of 
polite  chill  was  alone  held  to  be  safe  and  circumspect. 
The  Evangelical  revival  and  the  Oxford  Movement 
were  equally  revolts  against  the  flat  and  worldly 
spirit  admired  by  the  dull  Theism  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century;  and,  divergent  as  their  course  was,  each 
had  its  origin  in,  and  derived  its  force  from,  the 
Enthusiasm  abhorred  by  that  very  elderly  century. 
Emotion  in  religion  was  assumed  to  be  the  very  label 
of  misguidedness:  for  religion,  it  was  held,  should 
consist  in  a  detached  concession  to  certain  moral 

80 


OF  EMOTION  AND  COMMON  SENSE        8i 

apothegms,  in  which  feeling  had  no  share  at  all. 
That  the  moral  apothegms  had  been  mostly 
sanctioned  by  enlightened  paganism,  and  implied 
little  that  paganism  would  not  have  admitted,  made 
them  seem  all  the  more  respectable  to  a  century 
that  loved  heathen  Rome  as  much  as  it  detested 
Christian  Rome.  The  Pope  is  the  arch-txpression 
of  Christian  Rome,  and  the  Pope's  arch-offence  was 
in  his  claim  to  be  the  Vicar  of  Christ;  for  the  very 
title  of  Vicar  of  Christ  must  always  keep  alive  the 
idea  of  a  Personal  God,  and  of  a  personal  religion 
expressing  the  intimate  relations  of  every  person 
with  God.  Whereas  the  religion  of  the  admired 
heathen  was  not  a  personal  affair,  and  left  the 
feelings,  that  is,  the  heart,  untouched:  it  came  to 
consist  in  a  merely  public  admission  of  some  ethical 
truths  that  every  State  must  profess  in  self-defence, 
of  a  coldly  theoretic  morality  which  the  admired 
heathen  had  long  ceased  to  apply  to  private 
conduct. 

Christian  Rome  stood  for  a  personal  relation 
of  every  soul  with  Christ,  which  implied  a  sort  of 
interference  highly  objectionable  to  a  society 
formed  by  Voltaire,  however  it  might  profess  some 
mild  regret  at  his  excesses.  The  "Grand  Gibbon" 
— his  adjective,  not  ours — was  the  complete  embodi- 
ment of  this  attitude  towards  "Enthusiasm:"  which 
he  abhorred  because  he  thoroughly  disliked 
Christianity.  Enthusiasm  is  often  no  more  than  the 
abiding  result  of  Emotion:  a  large  crop  from  its 
little  seed. 


82  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

Instead  of  scolding  down  emotion,  therefore,  it 
would  be  more  honest  to  distinguish.  Of  course 
there  may  be  false  emotion — but  that  is  mere  senti- 
ment, and  remarlcably  unlike  true  emotion  and  as 
different  from  it  as  prettiness  is  from  beauty.  And 
even  true  emotion  may  be  transient  and  inoperative: 
but  then  the  pity  is,  not  that  there  was  a  brief  dawn 
of  emotion,  but  that  the  dawn  came  to  no  day:  and 
many  a  true  emotion,  that  was  all  on  the  side  of  the 
angels,  was  transient  chiefly  because  it  was  frowned 
down,  and  stifled  by  the  "prudent" — the  prudent 
who  are  commonly  supposed  to  be  those  indolent 
persons  whose  fear  is  always  of  doing  too  much: 
whereas  what  has  been  done  has  usually  been  done 
by  them  who  tried  to  do  much  more,  and  might 
have  done  more  but  for  them  who  were  mortally 
afraid  of  doing  anything — the  Weaker  Brethren, 
who  never  fail  because  they  never  attempt.  The 
Weaker  Brethren  are  not  a  prey  to  Emotion — nor 
was  the  Old  Man  of  the  Mountains;  their  office 
is  the  production  of  disagreeable  sensations  in 
others.  It  is  very  easy  to  take  for  granted,  and 
very  hard  to  prove,  that  Emotion  is  dangerous.  I 
suspect  it  is,  whenever  genuine  (and  an  insincere 
emotion  is  not  readily  conceivable)  on  the 
Angel's  side.  The  Saints  were  glaring  instances  of 
Enthusiasm,  and  especially  the  Apostles:  St.  Peter 
was  obviously  subject  to  Emotion:  and  it  did  not 
prevent  his  Master  choosing  him  for  their  Prince: 
perhaps  it  led  him  to  his  downward  cross.  St. 
Paul's  letters  pulse  and  throb  with  emotion — and 


OF  EMOTION  AND  COMMON  SENSE        83 

he  is  the  villain  of  the  piece  of  Christianity  with 
them  who  dislike  it. 

Common  Sense  is  held  up  as  the  monitress  of 
Emotion:  and  the  commoner  it  is,  the  more 
complacently  it  submits  to  the  role.  Wisdom  is 
justified  of  her  children,  but  Common  Sense  is  only 
her  putative  daughter,  and  has  flat  and  vulgar 
features  that  do  not  strongly  bring  to  mind  the 
Wisdom  of  which  the  Holy  Ghost  tells  us  all.  Till 
Common  Sense  has  learned  to  be  a  little  less 
worldly,  her  pose  as  an  authority  in  spiritual  matters 
fits  her  ill.  She  is  the  goddess  of  worldly  wisdom, 
and  to  Christian  ideas  goddesses  are  unsympathetic. 
Aware  of  this,  she  smugly  poses  as  Prudence,  and 
assumes  all  the  weight  of  a  Cardinal  Virtue;  but  the 
real  Christian  Prudence,  wary  walker  as  she  is,  goes 
undaunted  with  Charity's  blazing  torch  to  guide  and 
lead  her:  Common  Sense  prefers  to  sit  down  upon 
it.  The  Saints  had  Christian  Prudence  in  an 
eminent  degree,  else  they  would  never  have  been 
canonized,  but  their  Prudence  showed  itself  in 
making  less  of  this  world  than  of  the  next.  That  is 
not  at  all  the  way  with  Common  Sense.  Her  voice  is 
that  of  the  current  majority,  extremely  audible  now 
and  here,  and  well  enough  content  to  drown  a  still, 
small  voice  of  which  we  have  heard.  "You  had 
better  not,"  is  her  counsel  of  perfection.  "Not" 
and  "better"  are  her  synonyms.  "Yes"  and  "Best" 
are  the  synonyms  of  cardinal  virtue  Prudence. 
"Come,"  says  she  to  Emotion,  "and  I  will  show  you 
how  to  do  it."     "Go  back,"  says  Common  Sense, 


84  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

*'and  presently  I  will  make  you  understand  the  cost 
of  it  all,  the  trouble  of  it,  and  the  distance  of  the 
goal,  how  steep  the  way,  and  how  stony,  the 
brambles  that  shall  scratch  you,  and  the  gibes  that 
shall  accompany  you.  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is 
tiot  set  upon  a  hill;  Violence  shall  never  take  it  by 
force:  Violence  is  not  particularly  well-bred. 
Singularity  is  vulgar,  and  singularity  consists  in 
supposing  you  should  try  and  do  what  everybody  else 
is  not  doing  already.  Come,  now,  let  me  quench 
that  flax  of  yours  that  only  smokes,  and  enlightens 
no  one,  and  warms  no  one:  it  makes  our  eyes  smart 
and  prevents  your  seeing  what  we  all  see — the  exag- 
gerated nature  of  your  aims;  nothing  is  so  delusive 
as  exaggeration." 

As  if  the  Devil  never  exaggerated,  as  if  he  never 
made  inaccessible  mountains  out  of  trumpery  mole- 
hills that  honest  effort  could  kick  into  dust.  Of 
course  the  Devil  never  exaggerated  the  difficulties  of 
decency  and  made  people  scoundrels  out  of  despair, 
or  kept  middling  Christians  hovering  at  Heaven's 
gate  out  of  a  timorous  shrinking  from  the  excesses 
of  perfection. 


PSALMS  OR  "POORER  STUFF" 

THE  Lenten  Pastoral  of  one  of  our  most 
gifted  Bishops  is  a  plea  for  the  wider  and 
more  habitual  use  of  the  Psalter  by  the 
faithful  in  their  prayers.  He  quotes  St.  Jerome  to 
remind  us  of  a  time  when  the  psalms  were  not 
treated  as  the  monopoly  of  lettered  clerks  and 
cloistered  monks  or  nuns,  but  were  sung  in  every 
Christian  home  and  by  humble  peasants  at  their  toil, 
by  the  ploughman  as  he  traced  the  slow  furrow, 
by  the  vine-dresser  as  he  pruned  the  vine,  by  lonely 
shepherds,  and  by  the  labourer  as  he  wielded  his 
heavy  tools.  The  Bishop  calls  St.  Chrysostom  to 
witness  how  many  that  in  his  day  had  no  literature, 
knew  by  heart  the  eternal  songs  of  the  poet-king. 

For  centuries  after  St.  Jerome  and  St.  Chrysos- 
tom, the  Bishop  notes,  the  Psalter  was  "the  one 
prayer-book  of  all  who  could  then  read."  "They 
have  nourished  the  life  of  the  Church  in  every  age, 
and  moulded  the  hearts  of  her  saints."  All  who 
read  the  lives  of  the  Saints  must  remember  how 
spontaneously  the  words  of  the  psalms  arose  to 
their  lips  in  joy  and  sorrow,  trial  and  jubilant 
thanksgiving.  And,  then,  in  a  noble  passage  we  are 
briefly  shown  how  perfectly  every  phase  of  human 
emotion,  every  need  of  man's  soul,  every  aspiration 


86  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

of  his  spirit  in  penitence  or  devout  love  and  grati- 
tude, finds  itself  expressed  for  us  in  words  that  pass 
our  own  powers  but  become  at  once  our  own,  be- 
cause they  are  God-inspired,  and  eternally  true  for 
each  of  us,  in  these  never-failing  outpourings  of  one 
of  the  greatest  hearts  that  God  ever  made. 

This  world-poet  sang  not  only  for  himself,  but 
of  all  things  that  in  their  infinite  variety  time  cannot 
wither  nor  custom  stale — of  God  and  all  man;  of 
God  alone;  of  the  triple  drama  of  Creation,  Fall 
and  Redemption;  of  the  Church,  unborn  yet,  but  to 
be  born  out  of  the  wounded  side  of  Christ;  of  all 
God's  lovely  world.  Nature,  as  we  call  it,  and  the 
universe  of  stars,  the  ring  upon  His  creating  finger, 
the  gems  wherewith  the  fringe  of  His  raiment  is 
jewelled. 

In'  an  ugly  age  we  long  for  beauty,  in  a  tired  sea- 
son we  turn  hither  and  thither  for  rest;  and  in  the 
psalms  we  find  both  as  we  can  scarce  find  them  else- 
where. Not  that  they  are  sad.  The  sorrowful 
may  in  them  find  a  sympathy  that  is  incomparably 
human  because  it  is  also  divine;  but  they  are  often 
exultant,  often  jubilant,  a  rhapsody  of  clear  triumph 
and  delight  as  poignant  as  the  skylark's.  They  are 
more  human  than  any  other  poems,  and  more  spirit- 
ual. There  is  no  instinct  of  man's  more  innate  than 
the  relic  of  paradise  that  assails  him  with  the  desire 
to  rise  above  himself  whither  he  came;  and  nowhere 
is  that  instinct  voiced  with  more  wistful  p.athos  than 
in  the  psalms,  nowhere  more  tenderly  encouraged. 


PSALMS  OR  "POORER  STUFF"  87 

Who  will  give  me  wings  like  a  dove, 
And  I  will  fly  and  be  at  rest. 
Lo,  far  off  have  I  gone,  flying  away, 
And  I  abode  in  the  wilderness.  .  .  . 

You  shall  be  as  the  wings  of  a  dove. 
Covered  with  silver; 
And  the  hinder  parts  of  her  back 
With  the  paleness  of  gold. 

One  of  the  purest  of  our  own  poets  knew  that 
there  are  times  when  the  loneliness  of  man  will  drive 
him  far  from  men  to  find  a  salve  for  his  wound  in 
the  wilderness  where  God  is  easier  seen.  It  was  no 
new  discovery:  the  shepherd-king,  who  sang  most 
sweetly  of  Him  Who  was  to  be  King  and  Shepherd, 
had  sung  of  it  long  before.  Where  Is  a  Nature- 
song  like  this? 

O  Lord,  my  God,  Thou  art  great,  exceedingly! 

Thou  hast  put  on  praise  and  beauty, 

And  art  clothed  with  light  as  with  a  garment. 

Who  stretchest  out,  like  a  pavilion,  the  heavens: 

Who  coverest  the  higher  rooms  thereof  with  water: 

Who  makest  the  clouds  Thy  chariot: 

Who  walkest  upon  the  wings  of  the  winds: 

Who  makest  Thine  angels  spirits 

And  Thy  ministers  a  burning  fire: 

Who  hast  founded  the  earth  on  its  own  bases: 

It  shall  not  be  moved  for  ever  and  ever: 

The  deep,  like  a  garment,  is  its  clothing. 

Above  the  hills  shall  the  waters  stand  .  .  . 


88  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

Thou  hast  set  a  bound  they  shall  not  pass, 

Nor  turn  again  to  cover  the  earth. 

Thou  sendest  forth  springs  in  the  vales, 

Between  the  midst  of  the  hills  shall  the  waters  pass. 

All  the  beasts  of  the  field  shall  drink  thereof, 

And  the  wild  asses  wait  in  their  thirst: 

Over  them  the  birds  of  the  air  shall  dwell, 

From  out  of  the  rocks  shall  they  give  forth  their  voices, 

From  Thy  upper  rooms  Thou  waterest.the  hills. 

The  earth  shall  be  filled  with  the  fruit  of  Thy  works. 

Bringing  forth  grass  for  cattle. 

And  herb  for  the  service  of  men 

That  Thou  mayest  bring  forth  bread  out  of  .the  earth 

And  wine  that  may  cheer  the  heart  of  man. 

The  trees  of  the  field  shall  be  filled, 

And  the  cedars  of  Libanus  which  He  hath  planted 

There  the  sparrows  shall  make  their  nests — 

The  highest  of  them  is  the  house  of  the  heron; 

The  high  hills  are  a  refuge  for  the  harts. 

The  rocks  for  the  irchins. 

He  hath  made  the  moon  for  seasons. 

The  sun  knoweth  his  going  down. 

Thou  hast  appointed  darkness, 

And  it  is  night; 

In  it  all  the  beasts  of  the  wood  go  about, 

The  young  lions  roaring  after  their  prey 

And  seeking  their  meat  from  God. 

The  sun  ariseth,  and  they  are  gathered  together. 

And  they  shall  lie  down  in  their  dens. 

Man  shall  go  forth  to  his  work 

And  to  his  labour  till  the  evening. 

How  great  are  Thy  works,  O  God! 

Thou  hast  made  all  things  in  wisdom. 

The  earth  is  filled  with  Thy  riches. 


PSALMS  OR  "POORER  STUFF"  89 

So  is  this  great  sea 

Which  stretcheth  wide  its  arms. 

There  are  creeping  things  without  number, 

Creatures  little  and  great. 

There  shall  the  ships  go, 

And  this  sea-dragon 

Which  thou  hast  formed  to  play  therein: 

All  wait  for  thee  to  give  their  food  in  season.  .  .  . 

But  this  book  of  universal  poems  is  much  neglected 
now  by  those  who  choose  their  prayers  for  them- 
selves. ".  .  .  and  if  to-day  they  seem  to  be  ousted 
from  their  place  of  honour,  and  to  have  made  room 
for  poorer  stuff,  this  does  but  show  that  many,  in 
selecting  their  devotions,  prefer  the  compositions 
of  men  and  women,  albeit  pious,  to  those  of  the 
Source  of  Holiness  Itself." 

The  Church  leaves  each  of  us  free  to  choose 
among  the  Saints  those  whom  each  prefers  for 
special  patrons;  nevertheless,  she  shows  that  among 
the  Saints  are  some  who  must  receive  the  devotion 
of  us  all,  as  Christ's  Mother  and  St.  Peter.  Nor 
does  she  fussily  dictate  uniformity  In  private  prayer 
to  those  who,  holding  one  faith,  belong  to  every 
clime  and  age;  to  young  and  old,  to  northern  and 
southern,  to  lettered  and  unlettered,  to  the  coarse 
and  the  refined — for  the  coarse  and  vulgar  may  be 
saved  too.  Yet  by  her  own  example  she  hints  at 
what  would  be  best  for  all;  and  Into  the  hands  of 
all  on  whom  she  lays  the  obligation  of  stated  prayer 
she  puts  the  psalms:  the  prayer  of  the  priest  and  of 
the  religious,  as  she  enjoins  It  on  them,  consists,  as  to 


90  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

nine  parts  out  of  ten,  of  psalms.  And  the-se,  her 
clergy  and  her  religious,  are  her  salt  wherewith  the 
whole  soil  of  her  kingdom  is  to  be  seasoned.  From 
them,  therefore,  she  looks  for  a  piety  the  most 
sincere,  the  most  virile,  the  most  practical  and 
genuine;  and  to  form  it,  and  feed  it,  to  give  it  Its 
character  and  colour,  its  sinews  and  its  nerves,  she 
puts  into  their  praying  mouths  the  psalms.  The 
most  loyal  and  loving  child  obeys  without  a  word  of 
command,  on  the  first  apprehension  of  his  mother's 
desire.  And  from  what  the  Church  does  herself 
we  may  teach  ourselves  what  to  do.  When  she 
prays  It  Is  with  the  psalms. 

But  there  Is  a  piety  barely  skin-deep,  exotic  and 
heat-forced,  not  much  inured  to  sharp  breeze  or 
nipping  frost,  not  of  the  outdoor,  work-a-day  sort, 
not  over-masculine,  nor  vigorous,  nor  meant  for 
rough  usage.  And  it  likes  prettiness  better  than 
beauty,  sentiment  more  than  sense,  rhetoric  rather 
than  resolve;  and  the  psalms  are  not  much  loved  by 
It,  They  hardly  lend  themselves  to  it — though  they 
lend  themselves  to  all  that  Is  real,  virile,  and  gen- 
uine. The  psalms  are  divine  prayer,  and  what  this 
sort  of  piety  prefers  is  not  even  manly. 


SELF  AND  SELF-SACRIFICE 

IT  is  no  grand  discovery  that  war,  whose  ruin 
and  pain  all  can  perceive,  may  be  a  medicine 
of  Omnipotence  for  surfeited  peoples  grown 
wanton  in  prosperity.  That  has  always  been  known, 
and  it  is  a  thing  we  may  need  to  remember,  but  are 
not  now  to  learn:  unless,  indeed,  we  can  be  said  to 
learn  that  which  we  have  wilfully  forgotten  and  are 
forced  to  call  to  mind. 

Among  the  worst  effects  upon  a  person,  or  upon 
a  people,  that  a  long  course  of  prosperity  may 
produce,  is  that  of  selfishness,  which  is  nothing  else 
than  an  oblivion  of  the  Two  Great  Commandments 
of  the  Law.  The  love  of  God,  above  all  things, 
and  the  love  of  our  neighbour  as  ourself,  are  ousted 
by  the  portentous  self-consideration  engendered  by 
too  great  facilities  for  Indulging  it. 

And  security  of  ease  in  self-indulgence  is  apt  to 
produce  in  a  nation,  which  is  only  a  many-headed 
(or  many-stomached)  person,  what  it  tends  to 
produce  in  an  individual.  So  God,  who  cares  more 
for  our  good  than  for  our  goods,  Intervenes:  and 
we  are  reminded  of  things. 

His  commandments  are  only  Divine  sanctions 
of  facts  that  we  cannot  Ignore  without  ruining  our- 
selves.    In   our   petulance   of  youth,   perhaps,   we 

91 


92  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

wish,  in  our  unavowed  secret  hearts,  that  He  had 
not  made  so  many  commandments:  as  if  their 
number  had  been  arbitrary  and  casual,  and  there 
might  have  been  fewer  had  irresponsible  Omnipo- 
tence so  chosen.  But  presently  we  perceive  that, 
if  God  had  been  silent,  man  would  have  had  to  make 
the  Commandments-  for  himself.  That  is  our  dis- 
covery about  the  Ten  Commandments. 

The  Two  Great  Commandments  of  the  Law  are 
more  summary,  and  at  first  may  strike  us  as  less 
intimate,  a  sort  of  transcendental  generalisation 
towards  which  we  admit  a  nodding  acquaintance,  and 
pass  on  not  unwillingly.  And,  if  we  do,  we  are 
ruined  again.  For  they  also  are  only  a  statement 
of  impregnable  fact.  God  matters  to  man  more 
than  man  matters  to  himself;  and  no  individual  man 
can  stand  alone  heedless  of  his  fellow  men.  God, 
in  the  beginning,  said:  "It  is  not  good  for  man 
to  be  alone":  because  he  cannot;  if  he  tries,  he 
becomes  a  monster,  nor  less  horrible  to  angels 
because  he  may  be,  by  a  whole  civilisation,  removed 
from  a  savage;  to  angelic  loyalty,  and  to  angelic 
intelligence,  indeed,  that  which  we  call  civilisation 
may  not  appear  peculiarly  beautiful.  There  was 
only  one  perplexing  rebellion  in  heaven :  to  the  un- 
fallen  angels  loyalty  is  the  only  beauty,  and  terres- 
trial civilisation  has  often  been  disloyal  to  Heaven's 
King  and  ours.  To  celestial  intelligence  mundane 
efforts  to  find  happiness  and  freedom  without  God 
can    only    appear    perverse    stupidity:    a    pitiable 


SELF  AND  SELF-SACRIFICE  gi 

attempt  to  make  emptiness  look  full  and  rottenness 
smell  sweet. 

Still,  the  attempt  Is  made:  each  new  civilisation 
tries  the  experiment.  God,  it  asserts,  in  more  or 
less  decorous  phrase,  civic  or  national,  is  not  essen- 
tial to  it:  and  each  individual  man  proceeds  to  feel: 
"Neither  Is  anyone  else  to  me." 

And,  because  God's  facts  are  facts  for  all  men  and 
for  all  time,  then  come  the  barbarians  and  blow  up 
the  civilisation  that  had  two  mines  under  It.  Now 
war,  itself  very  often  the  direct  consequence  and  ripe 
fruit  of  a  monarch's  or  a  nation's  selfishness,  serves 
often  for  the  sharp  and  searching  medicine  against 
these  two  poisons  of  forgetfulness.  While  it  rigor- 
ously reminds  us  of  undethroned  Omnipotence,  and 
sends  us  piteously  entreating  to  the  steps  of  that 
throne,  it  also  brings  us  back  to  the  sense  that  isola- 
tion In  ourselves  will  not  do.  A  common  danger 
and  a  common  dread  compel  us  to  remember  our 
need  of  others,  and  their  need  of  us;  and  we  per- 
ceive that  this  need  is  greater  and  more  real  than  our 
need  of  mere  things;  forced  to  recognise  Death's 
august  and  dread  presence  in  our  midst,  at  our 
threshold,  we  no  longer  can  think  life  less  than  the 
trappings  of  It. 

And  this  awakening  to  a  poignant  mutual  need 
and  inter-dependence  between  us  and  our  brothers 
sets  alight  a  generosity  by  whose  warmth  our  self- 
absorption  is  kindled  to  self-sacrifice. 

We  may  see  that  happening  all  over  England  to- 


94  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

day  and  all  over  the  great  family  of  peoples  that 
is  called  by  the  name  of  British  Empire.  But  what 
happens  closest  to  our  own  eyes  is  what  we  most 
plainly  notice. 

Here,  then,  we  witness  a  great  and  significant 
change  in  the  attitude  and  demeanour  of  the  people. 
It  is  more  grave;  and  everywhere  there  is  a  marked 
disposition  to  share  in  the  common  work  and  the 
common  self-denial.  A  noble  example  of  this  dispo- 
sition of  heart  and  mind  is  that  given  by  them  who 
have  enlisted  for  military  or  naval  service  since  the 
war  began.  It  is  a  thing  that  cannot  now  be  done 
lightly:  and  it  is  done  with  the  deliberate  purpose 
of  going  to  help,  or  to  relieve,  them  who  have 
borne  the  first  terrific  onslaught  of  the  enemy:  out 
of  a  high  and  noble  determination  that  they  shall 
not  be  left  unaided,  that  on  them  shall  not  fall  the 
whole  burden  and  the  whole  danger. 

But  a  short  while  since  and  no  young  man  became 
a  soldier  except  to  please  himself:  that  is  no  longer 
the  idea :  immense  numbers  of  those  who  have  now 
taken  service,  whether  as  officer  or  as  private 
soldier,  have  done  so  against  all,  every  inclination 
of  mere  taste  and  liking.  They  are  young  men,  who 
if  it  were  time  of  peace,  would  never  have  turned, 
by  choice,  to  the  profession  of  arms.  They  are, 
many  of  them,  undergraduates  of  great  universities, 
whose  imagined  careers  were  to  have  been  wholly 
different:  numbers  of  others  have  left  posts  of 
comfort  and  emolument,  not  too  easy  to  have  gained, 
which  they  were  filling  to  their  own  satisfaction  and 


SELF  AND  SELF-SACRIFICE  95 

that  of  their  employers.  Nothing  is  more  striking 
than  the  way  in  which  men,  and  mere  lads,  too,  of 
the  highest  and  of  the  upper  and  lower  middle- 
classes,  have  laid  aside  their  own  pleasures  and 
profit,  and  that  very  largely  out  of  the  simple  motive 
of  not  leaving  to  comrades  already  in  the  field, 
comrades  bound  to  it  by  previous  engagement,  the 
given  dangers  and  sufferings  of  a  calling  which  they 
themselves  had  never  meant  to  follow,  which  they 
never  chose  when  it  involved  neither  suffering  nor 
danger.  And  what  is  true  of  the  young  men  of 
those  classes  is  true  of  the  young  men  of  a  lower 
class  who  have  recently  enlisted  and  are  enlisting 
now.  It  is  no  fancy  for  a  red  coat  that  has  called 
them  from  their  homes,  from  the  fields  whose  ridges 
have  been  their  horizon,  from  their  factories  and 
their  workshops :  theirs  is  no  red  coat.  To  them  the 
soldier  life,  untried  and  unknown,  is  strange  and 
mostly  uninviting.  They  also  have  much  to  sacrifice 
— everything  that  they  know  and  are  used  to:  and 
they,  too,  have  but  one  life  apiece,  and  most,  in 
leaving  home  and  the  friends  they  have  cared  for, 
take  it  in  their  hands  whither  they  barely  know  and 
whence  there  may  be  no  return.  And  this  heroic, 
plain  thing  they  are  brought  to  do  most  of  all  lest 
they  should  seem  to  be  leaving  in  the  lurch  men  not 
yet  their  comrades:  because  they  will  not  sit  selfishly 
by  a  secure  hearth  while  those  others  bear  and  are 
in  danger. 

There    are    a    thousand    arguments    against    a 
voluntary  army:  there  may  arise  an  absolute  neces- 


96  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

sity  to  lay  aside  Its  principle  to  save  the  life  of  our 
nation ;  but  in  the  meantime  it  has  this  singular  and 
splendid  quality,  that  every  soldier  offering  himself 
to  it  at  a  juncture  like  the  present  is  doing  what  I 
have  tried  to  describe.  And  hundreds  of  thousands 
have  done  it,  and  are  doing  It,  up  and  down  the 
country. 

Each  man,  I  say,  who  so  acts  Is  the  centre  of  a 
self-sacrifice  that  extends  far  beyond  himself.  In 
so  abdicating  himself  and  his  own  selfish  likings  he 
mounts,  however  silently  and  humbly,  a  throne  from 
whose  steps  selfishness  shrinks  away  out  of  sight, 
and  to  which  Innumerable  acts  and  impulses  of  self- 
sacrifice  crowd  as  courtiers.  He  infects — 'tis  an 
old  pleasure  of  mine  to  Insist  how  good  and  noble 
conduct  and  Ideas  are  just  as  Infecting  as  bad  and 
mean — he  Infects  a  whole  neighbourhood:  and  the 
mere  movements  of  natural  affection  set  going 
springs  of  generosity  and  self-sacrifice :  fathers, 
mothers,  sisters,  friends,  who  cannot  soldier,  must 
do  what  they  can  for  the  lad  who  has  chosen  that 
hard  and  noble  part  at  such  a  time  as  this.  You  see 
It  in  operation  all  over  the  Empire,  In  every  class 
and  condition  of  life :  though  It  never  may  be  known, 
here  on  earth,  what  has  been  done,  Is  being  done,  by 
the  rich  and  by  the  poor,  and  by  those,  perhaps, 
whose  self-denial  costs  most  of  all,  the  poor  who  are 
forced  by  tyrannous  but  not  Ignoble  convention  to 
seem  to  belong  rather  to  the  rich  than  to  the  poor, 
who  may  not  go   ragged,   who  must  uphold  the 


SELF  AND  SELF-SACRIFICE  97 

slowly-dying  tradition  of  a  gentle  name  and  gentle 
habits. 

What,  I  wonder,  have  this  past  Christmas's 
presents  to  our  troops  and  to  our  ships  cost  all  these? 
/What  pinchings  at  home?  What  laying  aside  of 
little  pleasures  and  luxuries  grown  almost  sacred  by 
custom  and  association? 

A  Merry  Christmas!  Who  durst  use  that 
beloved  phrase — coming  down  to  us  from  days  when 
Merry  meant,  in  English,  a  word  that  might  be  fitted 
to  angelic  Christmas  in  Heaven — who,  I  say,  durst 
use  it  this  time?  Whatever  motto  was  on  the  cards, 
the  real  one,  unwritten,  was  self-sacrifice. 


THE  GOLDEN  ROAD 

FOR  the  first  time  for  forty  years  I  passed, 
in  the  train  last  week,  the  station  where  I 
used  to  get  out  when  going  to  my  first 
school:  and  presently  the  boys  will  be  hurrying  down 
there  from  the  many-spired  town  to  go  home  for 
Christmas.  I  call  them  all  my  school-fellows,  just 
as  when  I  was  there  (with  their  grand-fathers,  per- 
haps). I  thought  of  Addison  and  David  Garrick, 
of  Dr.  Johnson  and  Elias  Ashmole  as  my  school-fel- 
lows .  .  .  and  will  the  journey  home  seem  to  them 
as  it  used  to  seem  to  me  in  those  far-away  days  that 
crowd  closer  on  me,  and  have  a  more  intimate  near- 
ness than  the  summers  of  these  years  since  I  have 
grown  old?  I  hope  so;  for  it  seemed  a  golden 
journey,  not  like  any  others,  half  unearthly,  and  yet 
the  most  perfectly  homely  of  any  one  could  make — 
homewards,  and  for  Christmas.  The  gold  was  not 
in  my  pocket — of  that  sort  of  gold  there  was  little 
at  home,  either:  to  buy  my  ticket  I  needed  one  bit, 
and  the  change  left  was  not  abundant;  but  it  did  not 
matter  in  the  least:  of  course,  there  were  millions 
of  things  one  could  have  bought,  but  to  go  without 
them  was  no  hardship;  the  thought  of  them  was 
possession  enough,  and  kept  alive  a  wider  sense  of 
rich  possibilities  than  prosaic  acquisition  could  have 


THE  GOLDEN  ROAD  99 

yielded.  I  never  remember  envying  rich  people, 
least  of  all  other  boys,  who  might  be  rich :  the  rich- 
ness of  the  wealthy  was  part  of  the  world  (that 
belonged  to  me,  too),  and  varied  it,  as  lovely  parks 
and  old  castles  do,  making  it  more  interesting  for 
me:  England  would  have  been  a  much  duller  place 
for  one  and  everybody  if  it  were  clipped  out  in 
allotments  of  a  mediocre  prosperousness.  Even  the 
shops  would  have  suffered,  for  they  would  never 
have  been  so  well  worth  looking  at  if  they  had  held 
only  the  sort  of  things  I  could  ever  have  pictured 
myself  able  to  buy.  Rich  boys  I  certainly  could  not 
be  jealous  of,  for  the  richest  of  them  had  not  my 
home,  and  I  would  not  have  giv'en  sixpence  for  any- 
body else's.     And  I  was  going  there — 

That  was  why  the  cab  that  rattled  and  rumbled 
me  down  to  the  station,  and  was  dampish,  and  had  a 
smell  like  a  cold  stable,  never  aroused  in  me  the 
slightest  adverse  criticism:  the  lean  velveteen  or 
corduroy  padding,  the  jolts  and  creaks,  the  clatter- 
ing windows,  were  merely  a  part  of  the  general 
sublime  episode — home-going.  The  horse  had 
broken  his  knees  so  often  that  he  was  pretty  indif- 
ferent to  breaking  them  again;  the  driver  might 
cock  his  hat  with  a  forlorn  attempt  to  look  doggish 
and  slightly  dissipated,  an  attempt  somewhat 
assisted  by  his  holly-berry  nose;  but  to  me  they  were 
both  friendly  and  cheerful  creatures,  bound  to  bring 
me  to  the  train  that  would  carry  me  to  the  place  I 
had  been  hungry  for,  dying  with  hunger  for,  all  these 
months.     The  horse  always  did  go  quick  enough  for 


100  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

that,  and  the  cabman  even  forced  him  into  a  mon- 
strous feint  of  galloping  for  the  last  hundred  yards. 
That  was  to  earn  my  modest  tip,  on  which  the  man 
spat  for  luck,  not  scornfully  at  all  as  he  wished  me 
"a  merry  Christmas  when  it  comes" — full  well  he 
knew  that  next  time  we  should  meet  the  sight  of  him 
would  not  be  so  pleasant.  There  were  Christmas 
hampers  in  the  station  (not  nearly  so  many  as  now) 
and  bundles  of  mistletoe  and  evergreens;  and  the 
porters  handled  them  with  a  friendly  sympathy,  or 
trundled  them  along  on  big  barrows  with  little 
wheels,  caUing  out,  "By  your  leave !" — as  if  anyone 
would  give  leave  to  have  his  toes  wheeled  overl 
The  man  who  sold  you  your  ticket  had  a  generous 
look,  as  though  aware  that  it  was  worth  double  the 
money,  but  you  were  welcome  to  it — not  like  the 
fellow  at  our  own  station  who  would  ask  as  much  in 
five  weeks  for  a  very  different  ticket  with  a  conscious 
air  of  monstrous  imposition.  Of  him  one  did  not 
choose  to  think.  Your  own  particular  porter  (in 
a  waistcoat  with  black  calico  sleeves:  if  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  alters  them,  then,  indeed,  will  he  have 
completed  the  destruction  of  that  England  I  knew 
as  a  boy)  came  for  his  tip,  too,  not  hintingly,  but 
with  calm  reliance  on  the  presence  of  justice  in  a 
world  that  even  then  was  said  (by  elderly  persons) 
to  have  its  faults.  He  did  not  spit  on  the  money, 
but  rendered  it  invisible  to  mortal  eye  without  seem- 
ing to  pocket  it,  and  certainly  not  holding  it  in  his 
hands,  as  he  clapped  them  together,  saying  it  was 
seasonable  weather  and  looked  like  snow. 


THE  GOLDEN  ROAD  loi 

*'And  a  merry  Christmas,  sir,  and  a  happy  New 
Year,  when  it  comes,"  he  called  out  as  the  train  be- 
gan to  move. 

The  trains  went  slower  then,  and  took  more  cog- 
nizance of  intermediate  stations — at  least,  mine  did, 
and  I  thought  it  an  advantage :  one  saw  more  of 
one's  native  country  and  gathered  a  fuller  realiza- 
tion that  it  was  the  journey  home  for  Christmas,  to 
which  every  stop,  with  all  its  one-tuned  incidents, 
contributed,  like  the  countless  notes  of  a  symphony, 
each  valueless  alone,  but  altogether  making  the 
wonderful  sweet  music. 

These  cold  Midlands  outside  the  windows  would 
have  given  buc  a  poor  notion  of  England's  beauty  to 
a  stranger;  flat,  raw  fields  under  a  low,  grey  sky, 
ragged  hedgerows,  broken  by  trees,  naked,  and  not 
usually  very  big;  but  I  knew  how  lovely  are  the  quiet, 
plain  things  that  go  to  make  an  English  countryside 
when  you  can  see  them  closely  and  leisurely,  not 
glancing  dully  on  them,  as  on  a  jumbled  succession 
of  maps.  And  all  about  were  dotted  homesteads 
and  cottages,  each  a  warm  heart  of  life,  all  the  ten- 
derer for  not  flaunting  it  too  publicly. 

Through  the  level  pastures  crept  a  slowly-winding 
canal,  continually  reappearing  w'hen  it  seemed  to 
have  been  left  miles  behind,  with  mellow,  lichen- 
crusted  bridges;  and  I  liked  it  better,  somehow,  than 
a  river,  for  in  rivers  only  fishes  have  their  homes. 
Canals  carry  on  their  unturbulent,  still  bosoms  a 
never-ending  procession  of  homes  of  men  and  wo- 
men and  their  children,  who  are  always  moving  (like 


102  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

all  of  us)  and  always  at  home,  go  where  they  will 
(as  we  all  are,  so  long  as  it  means  to  us  our  Father's 
rest  and  presence.) 

I  saw  the  slow  barge-houses  moving  deliberately 
through  the  patient,  winter  lands,  the  long,  long 
rope  behind  them,  now  taut,  now  oddly  slack, 
though  the  boat  never  stopped,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
long  barge,  with  its  queer,  delightful  house  and  the 
father  steering,  outside  his  own  front  door.  His 
children  played  upon  the  roof;  his  wife  was  hanging 
out  her  Christmas  wash  to  dry  on  the  lines  that  ran 
along  a  path  of  plank  reaching  from  stem  to  stern. 
She  was  evidently  joking  with  the  little  ones,  and 
they  were  skipping  and  laughing,  while  their  odd, 
mongrel  terrier  yapped  at  a  passenger  on  the  towing- 
path  and  made  dashes  at  him  that  nearly  sent  his 
shaggy  little  body  overboard.  And  the  bargeman 
pretended  to  encourage  his  dog,  and  the  wayfarer 
on  the  foot-path  didn't  mind,  but  laughed  and  hol- 
loed "A  Merry  Christmas!"  The  noisy,  disrep- 
utable-looking cur  meant  no  harm,  and  couldn't  get 
at  him  if  he  did;  and  wasn't  he  going  home  for 
Christmas,  too? — home,  I  was  certain,  to  yonder 
grey-red  mill  on  the  little  hill,  where  a  mealy-looking 
man  (the  traveller's  father,  it  was  plain)  was  run- 
ning out  and  calling  to  the  stout,  comfortable,  eld- 
erly woman  who  came  out  at  once,  wiping  soap-suds 
from  her  ruddy  arms.  And  the  traveller  had  a 
mistletoe-sprig  in  his  cap,  and  the  bargeman  had  a 
bit  of  holly  in  his,  and  over  the  roof  tilted  a  pole 


THE  GOLDEN  ROAD  103 

with  intertwined  hoops  hanging  from  it,  all  wreathed 
in  ivy  and  holly  and  mistletoe. 

Then  came  the  change  at  the  great  junction,  and 
the  wait  there  that  I  counted  as  half  the  day's  ad- 
ventures; the  hurrying  Christmas  traffic,  the  book- 
stall bristling  with  Christmas  numbers  of  hollyish 
outside,  and  robins,  with  snowy  pictures,  and  never 
a  pretence  that  Christmas,  after  all,  is  a  tiresome, 
expensive  season ;  and  crowds  of  people  going  every- 
where, but  all  going  home  to  keep  Christmas  and 
knit  up  ravelled  threads  of  love  and  friendliness. 
All  strangers,  and  the  more  exciting;  all  unknown, 
but  all  intimate  friends  bound  to  each  other  and  to 
me  by  the  golden  cord  of  Christ's  near  birthday, 
and  with  one  set  purpose  of  keeping  it  together — 
only  seemingly  apart.  They  have  reached  home 
now,  many,  many  of  them;  and  so  shall  I  soon;  but 
on  the  way  they  left  a  pleasant  trail  behind  of  smiles 
and  laughing;  and  many  of  their  smiles  fell  kindly 
on  the  stranger  face  of  the  boy  they  never  saw  be- 
fore, and  never  would  see  again,  but  home-bound, 
too — a  fellow  traveller.  And  so,  without  speaking, 
they  also  gave  him  Merry  Christmas,  and  he  thanks 
them  for  it  yet. 

After  a  good  hour  and  a  half  of  this  ungrudged 
waiting  and  watching  of  all  those  crossing  currents 
of  the  great  life  that  was  part  of  me,  as  I  of  it,  a 
train  that  seemed  smaller,  and  was  certainly  slower, 
took  me  on;  no  longer  by  the  great  main  line  north 
and  west,  but  by  a  cross  country  line,  where  no  one 


104  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

seemed  to  be  going  so  far,  and  most  of  the  passen- 
gers had  a  look  of  nearing  their  journey's  end.  One 
knew  the  names  of  all  the  stations  now  and  the  exact 
order  in  which  they  would  be  reached,  and  many  of 
the  people  standing  about  the  platforms  had  quite 
familiar  faces,  though  unknown  names. 

Then  another  change  and  a  shorter  wait,  at  a 
much  smaller  junction,  where  you  began  to  hear 
Welsh  talked  by  the  passengers — all  the  women 
were  knitting  and  some  of  them  wore  the  odd 
steeple-hats  that  even  then  were  growing  rare. 
After  that  there  were  only  three  or  four  stations,  and 
first  each  hill  and  wood,  and  soon  each  tree  in  the 
windy  hedgerows  had  a  familiar,  friendly  look,  and 
seemed  to  call  out.  Welcome  Home. 

The  wintry  day  was  closing  in  when  the  journey 
was  ended — and  who  could  be  sorry?  Our  little 
streets  looked  warmer  and  more  welcoming  with  the 
shops  lighted  up,  and  home  itself  never  could  look  so 
dressed  for  welcome  as  when  it  shut  itself  close 
against  the  snow  that  was  just  beginning,  but  opened 
itself  to  fold  you  in. 

Along  that  same  Golden  Road  the  passengers 
will  now  be  hurrying,  our  Father's  other  children, 
our  countless  unknown  brothers  and  sisters:  and  we 
must  needs  think  of  them,  and  pray  Him  bless  their 
journey,  and  bring  them  also  home. 


CONTINUITY  VERSUS  IDENTITY 

WHAT  some  very  excellent  people  mean 
by  Continuity  they  themselves  must  be 
supposed  to  know,  though  what  it  is 
they  do  mean  not  everyone  else  is  capable  of  grasp- 
ing: what  Identity  means  even  ordinary  people 
are  able  to  perceive  with  all  practical  correctness. 
I  say  with  all  practical  correctness,  because  no  one 
wants  to  pretend  that  perception  necessarily  implies 
the  faculty  of  accurate  definition.  There  may  be  a 
million  persons,  or  more,  who  know  perfectly  what 
a  tree  is,  for  one  who  could  define  a  tree  scientifically. 
Perhaps  a  child's  power  of  recognition,  of  perception 
of  what  any  known  object  is,  is  as  clear  as  that  of 
the  most  cautious  adult,  but  only  phenomenal 
children  have  any  faculty  of  exclusive  definition. 
Probably  ninety-nine  children  out  of  a  hundred  have 
as  true  an  idea  as  their  teachers  of  what  a  spirit  is, 
but  nine  out  of  ten  will  say,  if  you  ask  them,  that  a 
spirit  is  something  you  can't  see,  without  pausing 
to  remember  that  you  can't  see  the  East  Wind,  or 
the  smell  of  a  halfpenny  egg,  and  may  not  be  able 
to  see  your  own  feet,  though  they  can  see  theirs. 
We  are  not  just  now  concerning  ourselves  either 
with  children,  who  usually  can  define  nothing,  or  with 
adults    of    trained   thought    and    speech    who    are 

105 


io6  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

accustomed  to  define  all  their  meanings  with  perfect 
accuracy.  Ordinary  adults  do  not  belong  to  that 
class.  For  ordinary  people  mean  a  great  deal  more 
than  they  would  ever  take  the  trouble  to  define. 

And  ordinary  people,  without  defining  It,  have  a 
just  and  plain  appreciation  of  what  is  Implied  In 
identity.  When  they  talk  of  identifying  a  man 
they  mean  ascertaining,  or  proving  that  he  is  him- 
self, and  Is  not  somebody  else;  and,  on  the  whole, 
they  have  a  sufficiently  correct  notion  how  it  can  be 
done.  If  the  particular  man  in  question  is  well 
known  to  themselves  it  would  be  very  hard  to 
convince  them  that  some  other  person  was  he: 
astounding  cases  of  personal  resemblance  occur,  but 
they  are  phenomenal,  and  personal  resemblance  In 
such  a  case  would  not  settle  the  matter:  identity 
would  not  be  admitted  without  a  number  of  other 
proofs,  and  the  offered  proofs  break  down,  for  the 
straightforward  and  simple  reason  that  the  claimant 
is  not  the  man  he  says,  but  another.  This  common 
notion  of  identity  does  not,  even  among  the  most 
ordinary  people,  preclude  the  idea  of  development, 
or  (as  they  call  it)  "change."  The  Queen  Victoria 
who  celebrated  her  Diamond  Jubilee  had  developed 
vastly  from  the  Princess  of  1837  :  she  had  "changed" 
immensely  in  those  sixty  years,  as  was  inevitable, 
seeing  that  during  all  those  three-score  years  she  had 
been  alive:  she  was,  as  we  say,  a  different  person; 
but  none  of  her  subjects  doubted  that  she  was  the 
same  person.  Every  sane  man  was  certain  of  the 
"identity"    of    the    old    Queen    with    the    maiden 


CONTINUITY  VERSUS  IDENTITY       107 

Princess  in  spite  of  all  the  development  and  change, 
in  spite  of  all  anyone  could  say  as  to  there  being  not 
one  atom  of  her  body,  blood,  or  bone  the  same  after 
sixty  years  as  before,  in  spite  of  all  conce-Ivable 
change  in  opinion,  colour  of  thought,  like,  dislike, 
or  what  not. 

And  ordinary  people  can  and  do  recognise 
identity  in  other  things  than  individual  persons:  for 
instance,  they  can  and  do  perceive  the  identity  with 
herself  of  the  Catholic  Church,  no  matter  where 
they  see  her.  Many  of  them  dislike  her  extremely; 
and  those  who  dislike  her  most,  detest  the  sight  of 
her  equally  in  Ireland  and  Italy,  Austria  and 
Andalusia,  Sicily  and  Sardinia,  Chile  and  China, 
Portugal  and  Peru.  No  matter  in  what  language 
Catholicity  is  expressed  it  is  equally  offensive  to  these 
persons,  so  long  as  they  can  understand  it  at  all. 
Some  Catholics  may  be  well  educated,  or  plausible, 
or  (what  is  better)  well-off,  but  their  CathoHcity  is 
as  intolerable  as  that  of  the  most  ignorant,  the  least 
adroit,  and  the  poorest,  because  it  is  Catholicity, 
and  all  the  same  thing. 

Without  mentioning  Catholics  themselves,  who 
like  their  own  Church  everywhere,  there  are  many 
non-Catholics  who  respect  the  Church,  and  have 
good  words  for  her.  And  they  also  fully  recognise 
the  identity  of  the  Catholic  Church  with  itself 
all  over  the  world.  It  may  be  urged  by  some  that 
Catholicity  shows  to  more  advantage  in  one  country 
than  in  some  other;  an  Ulster  Protestant  thinks  it 
shows  to  peculiar  disadvantage  in  Ireland;  but  the 


io8  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

llkers  and  dislikers  all  feel  that  the  Catholic  Church 
is  one  and  the  same.  If  the  Catholic  Faith  could 
be  regarded  as  a  lo'cal  or  national  Idiosyncrasy  it 
would  not  be  the  bugbear  it  is  to  many  persons. 
Nor  are  her  enemies  merely  our  present  contem- 
poraries; she  may  have  new  enemies  in  a  new  age, 
but  she  has  had  enemies  a  long^  while,  and  they 
bear  witness  to  her  identity  with  herself  all  along. 
In  spite  of  all  the  development  nineteen  centuries 
must  imply  in  a  living  organism,  her  offensive 
identity  remains  unmistakable  and  unpardonable. 
She  is  the  same  villain  of  the  piece  through  a  tedious 
sequence  of  ages.  Should  some  milder  critic  plead 
that  she  has  improved,  these  others  would  scout 
the  notion  of  any  radical  improvement — because  she 
is  the  same,  in  spite  of  any  seeming  changes  incurably 
one  with  herself  always.  Should  a  sterner  critic 
scold  her  as  worse  now  than  ever,  he  would  himself 
admit  that  she  had  only  done  at  last  what  she,  in  her 
nature.  In  the  Inexorable  logic  of  growth,  was  bound 
to  do  sooner  or  later;  that  her  present  faults  were 
not  accidental  but  inbred  in  her  bone  and  sinew,  her 
heart,  mind,  and  spirit,  the  Inevitable  result  of  her 
being  what  she  Is,  and  always  was,  the  honest  yield- 
ing to  her  unchangeable,  but  living,  character;  the 
throwing  off  of  a  mask,  perhaps,  but  then  that 
process  only  reveals  Identity  more  clearly. 

It  is  labouring  a  stale  point,  all  this,  no  doubt,  a 
point  that  does  not  at  all  concern  the  vast  majority  of 
non-Catholics,  any  more  than  it  concerns  us.  But  it 
does  concern  the  wistful  plea  of  Anglican  continuity 


CONTINUITY  VERSUS  IDENTITY        109 

with  the  pre-Reformation  Church  In  England.  The 
continuity  plea  demands  ruthlessly  one  of  two  things  : 
either  the  assertion  that  the  Catholic  Church,  as 
understood  not  only  by  Catholics  themselves  but 
by  non-Catholics  of  every  sort,  the  schismatic 
Eastern  Communions,  the  Protestant  sects,  the 
whole  world  of  Islam,  the  vast  body  of  Buddhist  be- 
lievers, and  the  huge  agglomeration  of  non-believers 
— that  the  present  Catholic  Church,  I  say.  Is  not, 
change  or  no  change,  development  apart,  the 
Catholic  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages;  which  neces- 
sitates the  further  assertion  that  the  Catholic  Church 
has  now  ceased  to  exist;  and  that  it  did  not,  In  the 
Middle  Ages,  exist  in  England.  Or  else  a  proof 
that  the  present  Church  of  England  is  identical  with 
the  Catholic  Church  of  Spain,  Ireland,  Italy,  Austria, 
South  America,  and  so  on.  Continuity  implies 
identity.  Let  us  presently  consider  (i)  the  non- 
existence of  the  Roman  Church;  (2)  the  identity  of 
Anglicanism  with  the  Roman  Church,  if  it  still  exists. 
Neither  of  these  points  concerns  the  bulk  of  man- 
kind that  has  its  mind  made  up  on  them;  but  both 
of  them  concern  closely  the  dwellers  in  that  shadowy 
realm  where  "continuity"  is  necessary  to  sustain  life. 


THE  WIND  AND  THE  SHORN  LAMB 

ONE  cannot  say  everything  at  once:  and  It 
is  to  be  remembered  that,  for  our  present 
purpose,  there  is  no  need  to  consider 
whether  the  CathoHc  Church,  as  she  was  known  to 
the  Christendom  of  the  Middle  Ages,  had  or  had  not 
diverged  from  "Primitive"  Christianity.  That,  as 
Mr,  Kipling  used  to  say,  is  another  story.  It  does 
not  for  the  moment  concern  us  to  prove  that,  as  the 
Church  had  been  alive  during  all  the  centuries  that 
joined  the  Middle  Ages  to  the  "Primitive  Age,"  the 
alleged  divergence  amounted  to  no  more  than 
natural  growth  and  the  development  of  inherent 
principles.  For  the  holders  of  "Anglican  Con- 
tinuity" do  not  in  the  least  doubt  that  there  was  a 
Catholic  Church  in  the  Middle  Ages;  they  do  not 
deny,  or  wish  to  deny,  that  in  the  centuries 
immediately  preceding  the  Reformation  the  Catholic 
Church  existed;  they  are  convinced  she  did  exist  in 
England,  France,  Italy,  Spain,  Germany,  etc., — in 
Christendom  at  large.  The  Catholic  Church  was 
the  Church  of  all  those  countries;  that  the  behevers 
in  "Continuity"  fully  admit  and  assume.  Then 
came  the  Reformation,  which  they  largely  dislike; 
which  we  also  dislike,  but  cannot  ignore;  they,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  really  disposed  to  ignore  it;  for 

no 


THE  WIND  AND  THE  SHORN  LAMB   in 

while  we  perceive  (as  the  unconcerned  outside  world 
clearly  perceived,  and  has  always  known)  that  the 
Reformation  changed  the  religion  of  England;  they 
are  driven,  by  their  new  plea  of  Continuity,  to  deny 
or  ignore  that  change  and  to  assert  that  what  had 
been  the  religion  of  England  under  the  Plantagenets 
remained  the  religion  of  England  under  the  Tudors, 
Stuarts,  and  Hanoverians:  that  Cardinal  Beaufort, 
who  became  Bishop  of  Winchester  in  1405,  and  Dr. 
Benjamin  Hoadly,  who  became  Bishop,  of  Win- 
chester in  1734,  were  Bishops  of  the  same  Church. 
That  Cardinals  Langton,  Kilwarly,  Langham, 
Stafford,  Kemp,  Bourchier,  Morton  and  Pole  not 
only  held  the  See  of  Canterbury  before  Dr.  Tillotson 
— of  whom  the  Benchers  of  Lincoln's  Inn  com- 
plained that  "since  Mr.  Tillotson  came  Jesus  Christ 
has  not  been  preached  among  us" — but  were  Bishops 
of  the  same  Church  as  that  to  which  Tillotson 
belonged. 

If,  however,  the  Church  to  which  Hoadly  and 
Tillotson  belonged  was  the  Catholic  Church,  then 
the  Catholic  Church  existed  in  England  only,  and 
had  ceased  to  exist  anywhere  else.  For  no  one 
except  the  continuity  folk.  Catholic  or  Calvlnist,  Jew 
or  Turk,  can  believe  that  Cardinals,  of  any  country, 
contemporary  with  Hoadly  and  Tillotson,  belonged 
to  the  Church  of  which  those  gentlemen  were 
ornaments. 

Apparently  the  Reformation  had  an  effect  even 
more  damaging  than  any  even  zve  attribute  to  it;  for, 
while  it  left  England  in  possession  of  the  Catholic 


112  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

Church  and  Faith,  it  destroyed  the  Catholic  Church 
and  Faith  everywhere  else ! 

England  which  discarded  the  Pope,  and  five  sacra- 
ments, and  discarded  Purgatory,  the  invocation  of 
saints,  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  monks,  nuns,  and  a 
great  deal  besides,  remained  Catholic.  Rome,  and 
all  who  continued  in  her  obedience,  retained  all  those 
things,  just  as  they  had  been  held  in  the  times  of  all 
Cardinals,  Archbishops  of  Canterbury  or  York, 
Bishops  of  Winchester,  Lincoln,  Rochester,  Salis- 
bury, Durham,  and  so  on,  but  ceased  to  be  Catholic. 

Providential  for  England?  Yes,  but  (as  Dickens 
would  say)  a  little  particular  of  Providence.  It  was 
perhaps,  hard  on  that  vastly  larger  part  of  Christen- 
dom that  hadn't  changed  its  beliefs  at  all  to  have  lost 
the  Faith  altogether;  while  the  little  bit  that  had 
thrown  its  ancient  beliefs  overboard  was  left  in 
solitary  possession  of  the  real  Catholic  Faith! 
Hard,  that,  except  in  England,  the  real  Catholic 
Faith  had  expired  at  the  Reformation. 

Of  course,  a  blow  is  never  so  painful  when  one  is 
wholly  unconscious  of  it;  a  pain  that  you  don't  feel 
doesn't  hurt  so  much,  and  foreign  Christendom  was 
quite  unaware  that  it  had  lost  its  Catholic  Church 
and  Faith.  Italy,  France,  Spain,  Austria,  Hungary, 
Ireland,  Poland,  half  Germany,  and  so  forth,  had 
not  the  least  idea  that  they  had  become  mere 
"Romans,"  while  in  happy  England  nothing 
particular  had  happened,  in  spite  of  delusive  appear- 
ances to  the  contrary.  They  did  not  realise  that 
in  holding  what  their  forefathers  had  held  they  had 


THE  WIND  AND  THE  SHORN  LAMB       113 

fallen  from  the  Faith,  while  the  true  believers  were 
those  who,  lonely  in  the  northern  sea,  had  discarded 
those  veteran  beliefs  and  held  whatever  they  chose, 
so  long  as  it  was  not  what  their  forefathers  had 
believed.  The  bishops  of  Italy,  France,  Spain, 
Poland,  Ireland,  Austria,  Hungary  and  unreformed 
Germany  went  on  obeying  the  Pope,  just  as  the 
unreformed  bishops  in  England  had  done,  without 
ever  awakening  to  the  fact  that  true  ecclesiastical 
obedience  lay  in  contradiction,  vilification,  and 
defiance;  and  their  simple  flocks  followed  them. 
Monks  and  nuns  abroad  went  on  keeping  the  same 
rule  that  had  been  kept  in  England  for  a  thousand 
years  without  adverting  to  the  fact  that  in  the 
insular,  but  true.  Catholic  Church  monasticism  was 
abolished.  People  abroad  adored  the  veiled  Christ 
of  the  Eucharist  without  realising  that  they  should 
wait  for  several  centuries  till  the  results  of  the 
Oxford  Movement  should  have  legitimised  the 
practice:  they  went  openly  to  confession  to  a  priest, 
and  had  Masses  said  for  their  dead  friends,  and 
begged  our  Lady  and  the  Saints  to  pray  for  them — 
all  without  perceiving  that  such  small  matters  were 
in  abeyance  for  the  next  three  centuries  or  so :  in 
fact,  they  went  on,  up  and  down  Europe,  just  as  if 
nothing  had  happened  to  them,  and  the  disaster  had 
fallen  on  the  English.  Shorn  of  their  Catholicity, 
these  foreign  lambs  had  the  bleak  wind  of  their 
loss  tempered  to  them  by  being  simply  unaware  of 
it.  What  had  happened  to  them  was  unknown,  not 
only  to  them,  but  to  all  the  world  beside,  except  in 


114  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

England — and  England  kept  the  secret  for  several 
centuries :  it  was  not  till  the  nineteenth  century  that 
anyone  even  in  England  spoke  up,  and  let  it  be 
known  that  the  Reformation  had  not  cut  England 
free  from  the  Catholic  Church:  that  the*  Reforma- 
tion Church  of  England  had  remained  Catholic 
(obviously  without  suspecting  it  for  a  few  ages)  : 
that  Dr.  and  Mr.  Parker  had  belonged  to  the  same 
Church  as  Cardinal  Pole;  and  Dr.  and  Mr.  Hoadly 
to  the  same  Church  as  Cardinal  Beaufort — but  that 
Cardinal  Wiseman,  Cardinal  Newman,  Cardinal 
Manning,  and  Cardinal  Vaughan  did  not  belong  to 
the  same  Church  as  Cardinal  Langton,  Cardinal 
Bainbridge,  or  Cardinal  Morton:  for  no  one  ever 
doubted  the  Catholicity  of  those  ancient  Cardinals, 
or  called  them  "Romans"  (though  princes  of  the 
Roman  Church  and  eligible,  each  of  them,  to  the 
papacy  itself).  This  singular  result,  it  was  disco4^- 
ered,  had  been  produced  on  the  Catholic  Church  by 
a  Protestant  Reformation — or  at  the  time  when  a 
Protestant  Reformation  was  commonly  believed  to 
have  occurred,  but  hadn't  really — that  whereas,  be- 
fore it,  all  English  Bishops  and  Cardinals  in  com- 
munion with  Rome  had  been  Catholic,  after  it  all 
English  bishops  in  communion  with  Rome  were  not 
Catholic  but  schismatic:  that  those  who  had  never 
dropped  one  iota  of  Catholic  belief  were  Catholic 
no  longer,  and  those  who  had  abjured  nearly  every 
distinctively  Catholic  dogma  were  Catholic  still. 
Certainly  it  was  a  comfort  to  these  faithful  schis- 
matics that  the  wind  of  their  bleak  schism,  involving 


THE  WIND  AND  THE  SHORN  LAMB       115 

the  great  majority  of  ecclesiastical  Christians,  was 
tempered  to  them  by  ignorance  of  their  unhappy 
state:  and  it  was  odd  that  no  strangers  suspected 
what  had  happened  to  them.  Jews  in  Rome,  Paris, 
Vienna,  Toledo,  Warsaw,  Munich,  Brussels,  and  so 
on,  were  quite  In  the  dark  as  to  the  great  fact  that 
what  had  been  the  Catholicity  of  their  neighbours 
had  become  schismatic,  since  all  these  "Roman 
Catholics"  belonged  to  the  same  Church  with  the 
Roman  Catholics  of  Dublin  or  London,  whose 
Church  was  no  longer  Catholic  but  schismatic. 

The  Lutherans  of  Northern  Germany  and  Scandi- 
navia, the  Calvinists  of  Switzerland,  the  Presby- 
terians of  Scotland,  the  Huguenots  of  France,  and 
the  English  Nonconformists  supposed  that  men  like 
Cardinal  Beaton,  Cardinal  Mazarin,  the  Cardinal 
Duke  of  York,  Cardinal  Allen,  Cardinal  Cullen,  and 
so  on,  all  belonged  to  one  and  the  same  Church,  the 
old  Church  to  which  Langton,  Wolsey,  Beaufort, 
or  Bainbridge  had  belonged,  which  their  incompar- 
able Reformation  had  driven  out  of  Scandinavia  and 
Scotland,  England,  and  half  of  Switzerland,  Hol- 
land and  half  Germany:  and  they  had  not  the  least 
idea  that  the  Reformation  had  done  no  such  thing  in 
England,  but  that  the  old  Catholic  Church  llourlshed 
as  ever  In  England  under  their  Graces  of  Canter- 
bury and  York,  with  merely  a  Hanoverian  Pope  not 
in  holy  orders. 

And  so  of  the  Galllos,  who  troubled  themselves 
not  at  all  with  such  matters:  did  Frederick  the  Great 
ever  know  that  the  State  Church  of  England  was  the 


ii6  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

ancient  Catholic  Church  of  that  country?  Did 
Voltaire?  Did  Napoleon?  We  know  that  George 
Washington  never  told  a  He;  would  he  have  been 
ready  to  affirm  that  the  Church  of  which  George  III. 
was  the  legal  head  was  the  identical  Church  of  which 
Adrian  IV.  had  been  the  head,  undoubtedly  Cathohc 
then? 

When  Henry  IV.  of  France  turned  Catholic  did 
Queen  Elizabeth  think  he  had  joined  the  religion  of 
her  bishops?  She  didn't  seem  to  think  much  of  her 
bishops:  was  that  why  It  annoyed  her? 

"Oh,  Liberty!"  cried  Madame  Roland,  "the 
things  that  are  done  in  thy  name  !" 

"Oh,  Continuity!"  we  must  exclaim,  "the  things 
th-at  would  have  to  be  said  for  thy  sake !" 


CONTINUITY  AND  CARDINALS 


S' 


'  '/'"^  IXPENCE  in  the  box,  please,  for  each 
visitor — thank  you,  sir,"  said  the  verger; 
and,  being  satisfied  (the  box  having  a  glass 
front)  that  a  shilling  had  gone  down,  he  threw  open 
the  iron  gate  giving  access  to  the  south  aisle  of  the 
choir,  and  bowed  two  visitors  in.  "The  one  with 
the  puce  tie  (or  shirt-front;  would  it  be  a  shirt- 
front?),"  he  perhaps  informed  himself,  as  he  re- 
sumed his  seat  by  the  box  with  the  glass  front,  "is 
some  sort  of  Catholic  priest." 

The  other,  who  was  not  elderly,  might  be  any- 
thing. "Just  a  lame  'un."  The  two  visitors  passed 
on,  wondering  how  long  it  would  take,  at  the  present 
apparent  rate  of  progress,  to  fill  in  the  whole  walls 
of  the  Cathedral  with  glittering  brass  panels. 
Having  admired  William  of  Wykeham's  noble 
chantry  in  the  nave,  they  were  somewhat  impatient 
to  reach  the  other  chantry-tombs  in  the  "retro- 
choir,"  and  hardly  willing  to  do  more  than  pause  a 
moment  by  the  exuberant  monument  of  Bishop 
Wilberforce  in  the  transept. 

"Soapy  Sam!"  one  of  them  murmured,  not  un- 
gratefully, mindful  of  some  of  the  courtly  prelate's 
classic  witticisms.  Then,  since  the  six  stone  angels 
in  charge  can  say  nothing,  he  offered  a  little  prayer, 

117 


ii8  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

and  turned  to  the  steep  steps.  There  was  another 
tomb  to  pray  by,  much  less  ornate,  in  mid-choir, 
where  for  centuries  it  has  lain  before  the  great  altar, 
through  thousands  of  Requiems  and  Dirges,  low, 
plain,  and  sombre,  with  no  courtly  phrases  of  epitaph 
— the  Red  King's.  Though  all  these  requiems  and 
dirges  of  over  four  hundred  years  had  been  for  him, 
he  would  need  them  all,  if  ever  he  were  to  see  that 
Face  he  would  swear  by  so  hardily.  What  could  a 
stranger  do  but  stand  by  the  low  dark  stone  and 
offer  them  all  up  again,  as  though  in  truth  they  had 
been  meant  for  him  whose  mad  heart  had  crumbled 
to  dust  within?  It  was  strange  to  think  that  had 
he  been  some  great  servant  of  God,  instead  of  His 
rebel,  these  dry  bones  might  long  ago  have  been  torn 
hence  and  scattered  to  the  winds. 

It  was  strange,  too,  to  look  up  at  the  countless 
carven  figures  of  the  huge  reredos,  not  all  original 
and  ancient:  to  see  the  sculptured  bishops,  in  mitre 
and  chasuble,  dalmatics  and  alb,  gloves  and  buskins, 
as  the  bishops  of  Rome's  obedience  wear  them  to- 
day: and,  midmost  of  all,  to  see  the  great  stone 
crucifix,  and  remember  its  perfect  legality,  being  a 
wall-fixture,  and  how  illegal  and  affronting  it  would 
be  if  it  stood,  where  stands  the  empty  cross,  on  the 
shelf  beneath. 

The  younger  visitor  was  venerating,  not  super- 
stitiously,  but  genealogically  and  eclectically,  the 
regal  bones,  Saxon  and  Danish,  hidden  in  coffers 
high  up  on  the  stone  screen :  for  some  were  his 
ancestors,  and  some  were  not.     And  so,  presently, 


CONTINUITY  AND  CARDINALS  119 

the  two  visitors  left  the  choir  and  came  to  the  grove 
of  tombs  and  chantries  behind:  Richard  Fox's, 
Stephen  Gardiner's,  William  of  Waynflete's, 
William  of  Edindon's:  three  of  them  Chancellors 
of  England,  one  of  them  Lord  Privy  Seal — and  all 
of  them  such  Protestants  I  How  plainly  had  their 
lives  and  deeds  shown  them  members  of  the  same 
Church  with  their  successor  down  yonder  in  the 
transept,  my  lord  Samuel  of  quippish  memory! 

But  of  all  those  tombs  and  chantries  the  most 
significant  there  is  Beaufort's.  One  stands  a  few 
paces  off;  behind  perhaps,  with  the  plain  eastern 
side  of  the  great  reredos  at  one's  back,  and  the 
southern  sun  shines  in  and  lights  up  the  massive 
painted  figure  on  the  tomb:  the  red  robes  and  red 
hat  give  out  all  their  colours  in  the  caressing  light. 
One  may  have  just  come  from  St.  Cross,  which  he 
refounded;  which  stands  still  among  the  green  meads 
by  the  river,  a  lovely  monument  of  princely,  and 
better  than  princely  generosity  and  tenderness  for 
the  old  and  broken,  as  the  College  hard  by  is  of 
Wykeham's  reverent  love  of  youth,  and  that  other 
loveliest  college,  by  that  other  river,  is  of  Wayn- 
flete's: but  thick  as  these  memories  of  good  deeds 
crowd,  they  are  not  the  point  that  hits  and  insists, 
and  urges  itself  here. 

Yonder  Winchester  Bishop,  lying  there  in  Rome's 
scarlet,  might  be  no  effigy,  but  a  figure  just  dead, 
lying  by  Peter's  tomb,  in  Peter's  basilica,  for 
reverence  before  his  burial:  a  dead  Cardinal.  He 
was  a  Cardinal :  like  his  predecessor,  the  first  founder 


I20  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

of  St.  Cross;  like  Langton  of  Canterbury,  and  KIl- 
warby,  and  Langham,  Stafford,  Kemp,  and  Bour- 
chier,  Morton,  Warham  and  Pole,  all  Primates  of 
England;  like  Thoresby,  Kemp,  and  Balnbridge,  of 
the  Northern  Primacy;  like  Louis  de  Luxemburgh, 
Bishop  of  Ely;  Philip  de  Repingdon,  Bishop  of 
Lincoln;  Pandulph,  Bishop  of  Norwich;  John 
Fisher,  Bishop  of  Rochester;  Robert  Hallum, 
Bishop  of  Salisbury;  John  Thoresby,  Bishop  of 
Worcester;  Thomas  Langly,  Bishop  of  Durham — 
all  Cardinals.  Were  they  really  Bishops  of  these 
English  sees,  or  weren't  they  really  Cardinals? 
What  a  Cardinal  has  to  do  with  Rome,  and  Rome's 
Pope,  all  the  world  knows :  they  are  above  all  others 
Pope's  men;  his  Privy  Councillors,  his  electoral 
princes,  his  hands  and  arms  and  eyes  and  cars.  He 
was  one  of  them,  one  of  them  will  take  his  place, 
when  his  death  voids  It.  Next  to  the  Pope  himself 
nothing  more  papal  conceivable  than  a  Cardinal— 
a  very  stale  truism,  certainly,  what  a  cardinal  has  to 
do  with  the  Pope — but  a  very  unanswerable  question 
what  he  has  to  do  with  Anglican  continuity. 

This  Henry  Beaufort,  of  the  title  of  Sant  Eusebio, 
Cardinal  of  the  Holy  Roman  Church,  has  there 
ever  been  question  that  he  was  in  fact  and  truth 
Bishop  of  Winchester?  Here  his  effigy  lies  upon 
his  tomb;  yonder  In  the  fields  still  stands  his  benefac- 
tion of  St.  Cross;  'tis  as  holder  of  this  see  he  lies 
here.  No  one  ever  doubted  he  was  Bishop  here, 
and  no  one  doubts  he  was  one  of  the  Pope's 
Cardinals.     To  what  Church  belonged  this  Card- 


CONTINUITY  AND  CARDINALS  121 

inal?  Or  did  he  belong  to  one  Church,  and  his 
flock  and  clergy  to  another.  Was  he  "Roman," 
and  were  they  "Anglican"?  Common-sense  and 
plain,  indifferent  history  know  he  was  Cardinal,  and 
prince  of  the  Roman  Church:  does  history  pretend 
he  was  no  true  Bishop  here,  or  that  the  diocese  he 
ruled  here,  its  clergy,  and  its  people,  held  another 
faith  from  his,  and  held  him  for  an  alien  and  schis- 
matic, they  belonging  to  one  Church  and  he  to 
another  and  a  foreign  one?  Or  can  any  man  doubt 
to  what  Church  the  Cardinal  of  Sant  Eusebio  be- 
longed, to  what  faith  he  professed  obedience  before 
he  received  yonder  red  hat?  That  he  preceded  Dr. 
Wilberforce  as  occupant  of  this  episcopal  throne  no 
one  pretends  to  doubt:  can  anyone  pretend  to  believe 
that  he  was  Dr.  Wilberforce's  predecessor  in  a 
common  faith;  that  the  Church  of  that  waggish 
divine  was  also  his  Church :  that  what  the  nineteenth 
century  prelate  believed  he  believed,  and  (what  may 
be  as  much  to  the  point)  that  what  the  nineteenth 
century  prelate  disbelieved  he  disbelieved  too? 

If  anyone  can  believe  all  that,  one  readily  under- 
stands what  is  meant  by  saying  that  faith  is  the 
faculty  of  believing  what  one  knows  to  be  impossible. 

Or  was  Winchester  a  Papal  island  in  an  Anglican 
sea:  all  England  else  duly  Anglican,  this  one  diocese 
"Roman"?  In  sooth  there  must  have  been  a 
"Roman"  archipelago  in  this  England,  or  Canter- 
bury never  had  those  nine  Cardinal-Primates,  nor 
York  those  three,  and  Luxemburgh  was  never 
Bishop   of   Ely,    Repingdon   of   Lincoln,    Pandulph 


122  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

of  Norwich,  Hallum  of  Salisbury,  Thoresby  of 
Worcester,  Langley  of  Durham,  or  the  Blessed 
Fisher  of  Rochester. 

And  the  Pope  Adrian?  Was  he  no  true  member 
of  the  Catholic  Church  In  England  of  his  day,  or 
had  he  abjured  the  Island-church  of  his  baptism 
before  grasping  Peter's  heavy  keys?  Was  he 
Anglican  or  "Roman"?  A  twelfth  century  Pope  Is 
commonly  accounted  pretty  Roman,  and,  as  history 
has  been  written  so  far,  Adrian  has  never  been 
presented  to  the  world  as  an  Anglican  Antipope. 

Tin  the  devout  holders  of  "Continuity"  have 
proved  that  Pope  Adrian  was  an  Anglican  on 
Peter's  throne,  or  a  renegade  to  Papal  faith  and 
the  Papal  Church;  till  they  have  demonstrated  that 
Henry  Beaufort  was  no  Cardinal,  or  that  he  was 
never  Bishop  of  Winchester;  if  they  had  nothing 
else  to  prove,  they  must  support  patiently  the  smile 
of  common-sense  at  their  wistful,  forlorn  hope  of 
a  claim.  If  Wilberforce's  effigy,  between  its  six 
supporting  angels,  could  smile,  I  warrant  It  would, 
and  pretty  broadly,  at  anyone  who  should  assure 
him  that  he  and  his  predecessor,  the  Cardinal,  be- 
longed to  the  same  Church  and  held  the  same  creed. 
He  was  a  man  of  Insupportable  common-sense,  with 
an  intolerable  capacity  for  recognising  the  very 
bores  of  theory — beastly  facts. 


POLE,  CRANMER,  AND  CONTINUITY 

THE  admirers  of  Continuity  are  far  from 
denying  that  the  Church,  as  it  was  in 
England  under  the  Plantagenets,  was 
Catholic,  that  it  was  Catholic  under  the  Lancastrian 
and  Yorkist  kings,  under  Henry  VII.,  and  at  the 
accession  of  Henry  VUL:  during  all  of  which  time 
it  was  in  communion  with  the  Pope,  and  with  all  the 
other  Churches  under  his  obedience,  with  the  Papal 
Churches  of  France,  Spain,  Italy,  Sicily,  Sardinia, 
Corsica,  Poland,  Austria,  etc.,  and  professed  in 
matters  of  Faith  precisely  what  they  all  professed. 
No  one.  Continuity-folk  or  otherwise,  denies,  or  is 
concerned  to  deny,  that  so  far  all  these  people,  of 
different  race,  language,  and  country,  were 
Catholics,  belonging  to  one  Church  under  one 
visible  head. 

Then  there  arrived  the  English  Reformation,  the 
result  of  which  was  that  the  English  Church  dis- 
carded the  Pope  and  his  communion,  and  also 
discarded  a  great  mass  of  belief  integral  to  the 
Church,  of  which  he  was  the  visible  head.  If  it 
be  correct  to  say  that  the  Pope  was  a  Roman 
Catholic  it  is  also  correct  to  say  that  all  the 
Cardinals,  Archbishops,  Bishops,  prelates,  abbots, 
priests,  monks,  nuns,  and  lay  people  who  were  in 

123 


124  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

communion  with  him  in  France,  Spain,  Italy,  and 
so  on,  were  Roman  Catholics  too:  he  did  not  belong 
to  one  Church  and  religion  and  they  to  another. 
And  It  must  equally  be  said  that  the  Archbishops, 
bishops,  etc.,  who  occupied  the  English  Sees  when 
Henry  VIII.  mounted  the  throne  were  Roman 
Catholics;  they  had  one  Faith  with  the  Pope,  and 
belonged  to  the  Church  which  everywhere  acknowl- 
edged him  as  Its  visible  head.  When  the  time 
arrived  In  which  the  English  Church  fell  out  of 
Communion  with  the  Pope,  and  with  all  those  under 
his  obedience  over  the  seas,  and  ceased  to  teach 
what  he  and  they  taught,  then,  according  to  their 
own  belief,  and  that  of  all  the  world  besides,  its 
members  were  no  longer  members  of  his  Church, 
and  their  religion  was  no  longer  the  same  as  his. 
They  had  a  Church  of  their  own,  of  which  the 
Pope  was  not  the  head,  and  a  religion  of  their 
own  which  had  discarded  a  mass  of  that  teaching 
Integral  to  all  the  Churches  in  communion  with 
Rome.  They  were  no  longer  Roman  Catholics: 
they  no  longer  belonged  to  the  same  Church  and 
the  same  religion  to  which  foreign  Roman  Catholics 
belonged.  They  had  changed  their  religion. 
According  to  the  Continuity-folk  they  were,  how- 
ever. Catholics,  though  not  Roman  Catholics. 
What  had  they  been  in  their  youth?  Only  Roman 
Catholics?  And  was  the  profession  of  Prot- 
estantism necessary  to  Catholicise  them?  If,  we 
must  say  again,  the  "reformed"  Church  of  England 
was  Catholic,  then  the  Catholic  Church  existed  only 


POLE,  CRANMER,  AND  CONTINUITY       125 

in  England,  and  had  ceased  everywhere  else:  for 
indubitably  the  reformed  religion  of  England  was 
not  the  religion  of  any  other  country  in  the  world. 
The  Churches  of  Catholic  Europe  had,  elsewhere, 
ceased  to  be  Catholic:  they  had  done  nothing,  but 
had  changed,  and  lost  their  Catholicity.  They  had 
discarded  nothing,  innovated  nothing,  but  had 
changed;  while  the  English  Church,  that  had  in- 
novated and  discarded  right  and  left,  was  left 
serenely  unchanged.  Catholic  still!  But  ev-en  in 
England  there  were  those  who  changed  nothing,  and 
innovated  nothing:  did  Sir  Thomas  More  die  a 
Catholic?  did  Cardinal  Fisher?  or  had  they  fallen 
into  mere  Roman  Catholicism?  At  what  date 
did  they  change  their  religion  from  Catholic  to  Ro- 
man Catholic?  Cardinal  Pole  and  Cranmer  were 
both  Archbishops  of  Canterbury:  which  was  the 
Catholic?  No  human  being  has  ever  believed  they 
both  belonged  to  the  same  religion  at  the  time  of 
their  respective  deaths;  everybody  knows  they  had 
belonged  to  the  same  religion  as  children;  which 
changed?  Was  Cranmer  burnt  because  he  was  a 
Catholic?  Was  it  Catholicity  of  which  he  signed 
the  retractation  with  that  right  hand,  which,  ac- 
cording to  Macaulay's  ruthless  gibe,  must  shine  with 
peculiar  brilliancy  in  heaven?  I  know  that  Cran- 
mer will  never  be  canonised  if  he  has  to  wait  for  a 
Continuity  Pope  to  do  it:  the  Continuity-folk  do  not 
like  him.  Is  it  because  he  was  a  Protestant? — 
a  Protestant  Primate  of  a  Church  that  has  always 
been,  and  is  still.  Catholic? — whose  other  Primates 


126  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

were  all  Catholic — like  Whitgraft,  TlUotson,  Seeker, 
and  the  rest! 

Anyway,  Cranmer  and  Pole,  though  both  brought 
up  In  the  same  Church,  did  not  belong  to  the  same 
Church  during  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.  If 
Cranmer  was  the  Catholic  during  Edward's  reign, 
Pole  wasn't.  When  did  he  leave  the  Catholic 
Church?  He  had  changed  nothing  from  his  birth, 
how  was  his  religion  changed  over  his  head? 
Catholicity  must  be  an  odd  concern  if  it  sticks  to 
us  when  we  alter  our  faith  and  slips  from  us  when 
we  don't.  If  the  Continuity-folk  have  the  right  idea 
of  Catholicity,  then  was  Catholicity  unknown  till 
the  Protestant  Reformation  Introduced  it  into 
England,  had  never  been  known  in  any  other  land 
or  age,  and  has,  with  some  Insular  prejudice,  con- 
fined Itself  to  England  and  her  dependencies  ever 
since — a  I'insu  to  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  Christian 
or  heathen,  Jewish,  Islamic,  Hindu,  Buddhist, 
Atheist,  or  Agnostic,  that  has  always  laboured  under 
the  delusion  that  the  Pope  was  a  Catholic,  and  that 
those  of  his  obedience  belonged  to  his  Church,  while 
those  who  belonged  to  religious  bodies  refusing  his 
obedience  were  not  members  of  his  Church,  and  were 
not  Catholics. 

Had  the  English  Reformers  themselves  recked 
of  "Continuity,"  they  might  well  have  devoted  an 
Article  of  the  Church  of  England's  faith  to  it: 
and  made  up  the  forty — a  more  mystic  number, 
with  less  anti-apostolic  associations,  for  the  thirty- 
nine  are  suggestive  chiefly  of  the  forty  stripes  save 


POLE,  CRANMER,  AND  CONTINUITY      127 

one  five  times  suffered  by  St.  Paul  at  the  hands  of 
those  to  whom  Christian  faith  was  odious.  "A  fond 
thing  vainly  invented"  they  might  have  called  it, 
like  five  of  the  Church's  sacraments.  And  then  the 
Protestant  Catholics  would  have  been  sure  it  was 
all  right,  for  nothing  endears  a  proposition  so  much 
to  your  Protestant  Catholic  as  that  it  should  stand 
utterly  condemned  by  the  most  authoritative  defini- 
tions of  faith  promulgated  by  the  founders  of  his 
religion. 


THE  CONTINUITY  TRIBUTE 

WHAT,  then,  does  the  Continuity  plea 
really  mean?  That  is  a  question  which 
it  is  worth  while  asking  ourselves 
before  we  leave  this  subject.  The  plea  itself  is 
one  which  no  one  will  admit  except  those  by  whom 
it  is  made:  it  is  made  not  by  a  Church,  or  by  a 
religion,  but  by  a  mere  section  of  a  Church,  by  a 
small  minority  of  the  members  of  a  numerous 
religious  body.  That  large  portion  of  the 
Established  Church  which  is  still  perfectly  content 
with  the  name  of  Protestant  is  not  at  all  anxious 
to  claim  identity  with  the  unreformed  religion  as 
it  existed  in  England  at  the  accession  of  Henry  VIII., 
and  this  is  true  not  only  of  the  extreme  Low  Church 
party  in  the  Church  of  England,  but  equally  true 
of  the  much  larger  moderate  section,  which  is, 
probably,  as  little  attracted  by  violent  Low 
Churchism  as  it  is  by  Ritualism.  The  Anglican  who 
likes  "nice"  services  in  church,  who  prefers  to  have 
pretty  flowers  on  the  altar  and  sees  no  harm  in  a 
cross  as  a  centrepiece,  or  indeed  in  a  pair  of  candle- 
sticks flanking  the  cross,  or  in  a  coloured  stole;  who 
is  accustomed  to  see  those  in  the  chancel  turn  east- 
ward during  the  Creed,  and  all  the  Gloria  Patri,  and 
does  not  care  whether  a  clergyman's  head  is  covered 

128 


THE  CONTINUITY  TRIBUTE  129 

at  a  rainy  funeral  by  a  biretta  or  a  college-cap — 
that  sort  of  Anglican  not  only  dislikes  the  somewhat 
obsolete  ugliness  and  bareness  of  old-time  Prot- 
estanism,  but  he  is  also  slightly  scornful  of  ritualistic 
"mummeries  and  millinery,"  of  Roman  importa- 
tions, in  the  way  of  dress  and  ceremonial,  and  he  is 
entirely  unconvinced  by  "Roman  teaching"  pro- 
pounded to  him  as  the  real  faith  of  the  Church  to 
which  he  and  his  have  belonged  for  several  centuries. 
He  is  certain  that  such  teaching  in  pulpits  occupied 
by  clergymen  of  the  Church  of  England  is  new  and 
alien.  The  extreme  Low  Churchman,  the  more 
moderate  Evangelical,  the  "ordinary  Churchman," 
and  the  Broad  Churchman  are  all  agreed  in  one 
conviction — that  the  Church  of  England  did  at  the 
Reformation  renounce  the  Catholic  doctrines  in 
force  when  the  Reformation  came:  that  the  old 
religion  of  England,  under  the  Plantagenets,  for 
instance,  was  Roman  Catholic,  and  that  the 
Reformation  gave  England  a  new  religion  which 
was  not  Catholic  but  Protestant. 

And  this  was  recognised,  outside  England,  and  has 
been  recognised  ever  since,  by  all  those  who,  as 
outsiders,  were  unconcerned,  and  had  nothing  to  do 
in  the  matter,  but  merely  saw  and  acknowledged 
an  obvious  fact:  the  plain  fact  that  England  had 
turned  Protestant,  and  had  abjured  Catholicity  as 
a  nation.  That  fact  was  no  more  apparent  to  the 
foreign  Catholics,  who  had  made  no  change,  than  it 
was  to  the  foreign  Protestants  w^ho  had  made  new 
religions  of  their  own,  and  to  those  who  never  had 


130  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

belonged  to  the  Catholic  Church,  Jews,  Mahome- 
tans, and  so  on. 

All  this  we  have  said,  and  all  this  is  perfectly 
well  known  to  the  world  at  large. 

What  then  does  the  Plea  of  Continuity  mean? 

That  a  plea  so  quaint,  so  blind  to  every  considera- 
tion of  mere  fact,  should  be  advanced  at  all,  must 
point  to  something.     What  does  it  mean? 

To  us  it  seems  that  the  answer  to  that  question 
is  both  simple  and  touching.  The  plea  is  a  tribute, 
none  the  less  significant  because  it  is  involuntary  and 
reluctant. 

For  a  long  time  it  pleased  those  who  had  with- 
drawn themselves  from  Catholic  unity  and  Cath- 
olic obedience  to  vilify  and  deride  the  name  of 
Catholic.  They  justified  their  own  change  by  a 
rancorous  abuse  of  that  which  they  had  abandoned. 
They  spared  no  condemnation  of  the  Catholic  teach- 
ing and  of  the  Church  that  taught  it.  Nothing 
would  have  been  felt  by  them  as  a  fouler  insult 
than  such  an  assertion  (if  anyone  had  ventured  on 
an  assertion  so  preposterous)  as  that  they  had 
changed  nothing,  but  were  still  bound  by  the  old  rule 
of  faith;  that  the  Reformation  meant  no  more  for 
England  than  the  Council  of  Trent  meant  for  the 
Catholics  of  the  Continent.  To  be  Catholic  they 
held  to  be  damnable,  to  be  Protestant  was  their 
national  glory:  Englishman  and  Protestant  meant 
the  same  thing:  to  be  Catholic  was  to  be  foreign, 
un-English,  a  taint  of  disloyalty,  a  bend  sinister  on 
the  escutcheon  of  patriotism. 


THE  CONTINUITY  TRIBUTE  131 

And  the  Plea  of  Continuity  is  Time's  reprisal. 
The  vilified  name  of  Catholic  is  envied,  and,  as  far 
as  may  be,  stolen.  After  all  the  black  abuse  of 
Catholicity,  a  campaign  of  calumny  over  three 
hundred  years  old,  there  is  something,  after  all,  so 
great  and  incommunicable  in  the  name  of  Catholic 
that  descendants  of  those  who  would  fain  have 
obliterated  it  are  wistfully  clutching  at  it,  in  spite  of 
all  evidence  of  fact  and  common  sense,  as  if 
the  mere  name  were  something  to  conjure  Heaven 
with ! 

God  is  one,  and  His  truth  is  one :  that  was  the 
great  promulgation  of  Catholicity:  it  was  the  family 
secret  of  the  Hebrew  Church.  To  the  outside 
Heathen  world,  with  many  gods,  it  was  a  new  idea, 
and  by  it  Christianity  conquered  paganism.  Multi- 
form heathenism  would  never  have  succumbed  to  a 
multiform  Christian  Church.  The  uncaring,  in- 
different pagan  might  gibe  at  the  Catholic  intolerance 
of  heresy,  but  it  was  the  unity  of  Catholic  faith  that 
alone  would  destroy  the  vague,  all-tolerating,  sub- 
divided polytheism,  and  did  destroy  it.  As  soon  as 
Christianity  divided  against  itself,  paganism  and 
polytheism  began  the  revival  of  which  we  are 
witnessing  the  fruits.  Paganism  will  never  lie 
conquered  under  the  vague  and  multiform  theories 
of  a  Christianity  that  tolerates  divided  teaching 
within  itself.  Christianity  that  is  not  Catholic 
is  only  sectarian  and  Paganism  will  not  admit 
superiority  in  any  sect  of  any  name:  its  only 
superior  and  conqueror  has  been  Catholicity  that 


132  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

holds  to  the  hard  fact — One  only  God  and  one  only 
truth  about  Him. 

Paganism  is  the  new  preoccupation  of  the  new 
world,  as  it  preoccupied  the  world  when  Catholicism 
came  and  ousted  it. 

Those  who  put  forth  this  faltering  plea  of  Con- 
tinuity are  aware  of  it.  They  know  well  that  the 
Reformation  undid  the  work  of  fifteen  centuries; 
they  are  bitterly  ashamed  of  It;  and  the  only  thing 
they  can  see  to  do  Is  to  ignore  it,  as  far  as  their 
own  country  and  Church  Is  concerned,  and.  In  spite 
of  notorious  and  dismal  fact,  deny  it. 

The  Church  Catholic  did  what  no  Protestant 
Churches  have  done,  or  could  do.  And  the  Con- 
tinuity people  are  so  deeply  sensitive  of  It  that  they 
can  only  cry  out  "We  are  Catholics.  The  Church 
of  the  One  God  must  be  Catholic.  So  we  belong 
to  It.  We  always  did :  we  and  those  who  split  off 
from  It  (they  never  could  have  done  anything  so 
ruinous  and  frightful;  filial  piety  forbids  our  con- 
fessing they  did  so  horrible  a  thing).  You  do  not 
understand  us,  nor  our  Church:  you  will  not  realise 
that  In  calling  themselves  Protestant  our  forefathers 
meant  'Catholic'  all  the  time.  As  for  us,  we 
utterly  abjure  the  ugly,  disastrous  name  of  Prot- 
estant. We  like  all  you  like,  we  loathe  the  heresies 
you  loathe :  look  at  our  altars,  our  vestments,  our 
incense,  our  very  rosaries  and  Benedictions  of  the 
Blessed  Sacrament!  Is  all  that  Protestant?  Are 
we  not  eagerly  bringing  back  all  those  things  our 
fathers — no  they  didn't  banish  them:  they — " 


THE  CONTINUITY  TRIBUTE  133 

Can  they  look  around  them,  and  look  back,  back 
such  a  little  way,  and  say  that  all  these  things  have 
always  been  a  part  of  the  religion  established  in 
England  at  the  Reformation? 

Can  a  country  have  a  Protestant  religion  and  a 
Catholic  Church?  Were  the  bishops,  who  ousted 
the  old  Catholic  bishops,  Catholic  in  religion? 
Were  their  successors  Protestant  in  faith  or 
Catholic? 

What  would  have  happened  to  a  pre-Reforma- 
tion  bishop  in  England  (or  anywhere  else)  who 
taught  what  the  bishops  of  the  English  Church  have 
been  teaching  these  three  hundred  years  and  more? 
Has  any  bishop,  any  dean,  any  clergyman,  ever  been 
turned  out  of  the  English  Church  for  teaching 
Protestanism?  And  in  the  Catholic  Church  abroad, 
admitted  to  be  Catholic  by  the  Continuity  people 
there,  could  any  bishop,  or  prelate,  or  priest,  teach 
Protestantism  and  be  suffered  to  remain  where  he 
was? 

Has  any  portion  of  the  Catholic  Church  of  the 
Continent  taught  Protestant  heresy  during  a  century 
and  remained  a  part,  a  branch  of  the  Catholic 
Church?  That  the  English  Church  taught  Prot- 
estant heresy  throughout  the  eighteenth  century  no 
one  as  yet  denied:  to  the  Continuity  plea  it  is 
necessary  to  say  that  a  national  religion  and  a 
national  Church  are  different  things:  that  those  who 
belong  to  the  national  religion  may  be  all  Protestant, 
and  the  Church  to  which  they  belong  be  altogether 
Catholic. 


APOSTOLIC  WITNESS 

WHAT  Catholics  mean  when  they  say  that 
the  true  Church  of  Christ  must  be  not 
only  One,  Holy  and  Universal,  but 
also  Apostolic,  they  know  very  well.  A  Catholic 
child  knows:  but  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  non- 
Catholics  in  general  know.  What  is  more  probable 
is  that  our  idea  of  an  Apostolic  Church  is  not 
attractive  to  them. 

To  certain  High  Anglicans  it  is  so  far  attractive 
that  they  are  aggrieved  if  we  do  not  admit  their 
claim  to  Apostolicity  by  which  they  mean, 
apparently,  no  more  than  that  the  clergy  of  the 
Established  Church  have,  as  they  maintain,  an  un- 
broken spiritual  descent  through  ordination  by  duly 
consecrated  bishops  from  the  Apostles.  But  the 
High  Anglicans  are  only  a  section  even  of  their  own 
Church;  and  a  great  number  even  of  the  clergy  of 
the  Church  of  England  are  very  little  interested  in 
this  claim,  because  its  tenability  or  non-tenability  is 
immaterial  to  their  position.  Still  less  do  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  laity  of  their  Church  concern  them- 
selves with  the  matter. 

Outside  the  Establishment  the  Protestant  feeling 
is,  on  the  whole,  worse  than  indifferent  to  Apostol- 
icity,   even    in    the    United    Anglican    sense.     To 

134 


APOSTOLIC  WITNESS  135 

immense  numbers  of  those  who  belong  to  the  Free 
Christian  Churches  the  idea  of  a  clergy  claiming 
apostolic  descent  is  simply  repellent,  as  involving 
that  sacerdotalism  which  they  hold  in  abhorrence. 
Some,  at  least,  of  these  Free  Churches  have  no  clergy 
at  all;  no  doubt  "Christian  Scientists,"  for  instance, 
consider  themselves  Christians;  but  they  certainly 
do  not  want  any  priests  with  Apostolic  Descent. 
And  there  are  innumerable  sects  who  want  them  just 
as  little:  not  only  among  the  newest,  but  also  among 
the  older  religious  bodies. 

Probably  the  vast  majority  of  Protestants,  far 
from  envying  the  Apostolicity  claimed  by  the 
Catholic  Church,  regard  it  with  repugnance,  and 
consider  it  one  of  the  Church's  blemishes  and 
drawbacks. 

And  the  reason  that  underlies  this  attitude 
towards  Apostolicity  is  precisely  that  which  is  at 
the  root  of  their  dislike  of  Unity,  Sanctity,  and 
Catholicity,  as  notes  of  a  Church.  For  Apostolicity, 
quite  as  truly  as  the  other  three  notes,  is  not  recon- 
cilable with  Private  Judgement. 

How  could  Mrs.  Eddy  found  a  religion,  how  could 
anybody^  at  this  time  of  day,  if  Apostolicity  were 
an  essential?  And  the  foundation  of  new  religions 
is  a  very  seductive  occupation:  a  field  of  activity  that 
the  modern  world  loves  to  keep  open  to  all  comers. 
To  originate  a  sect  is  one  of  the  easiest  ways  of 
achieving  a  certain  measure  of  importance.  To 
become  even  a  political  leader  is  more  difficult,  and, 
perhaps  more  expensive,  though  the  expense  is  less 


136  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

than  it  used  to  be.  To  be  a  demagogue  calls  for 
hardly  any  capital;  nor  does  it  necessitate  very  high 
intellectual  endowments:  but  it  demands  adroitness, 
sleight  of  speech,  a  thick  skin,  an  indifference  to 
results  that  might  stagger  men  of  even  a  very 
commonplace  conscientiousness  and  a  power  of 
seducing  the  ear  and  fancy  of  large  bodies  of  men. 
You  can  found  a  sect  even  though  you  be  able  to 
get  round  only  a  handful  of  old  women.  Your 
intellectual  capital  may  be  sheer  beggary:  you  may 
have  merely  a  parlour  voice,  that  would  not  carry 
twenty  yards  out  of  doors;  you  need  not  be  funny, 
even  vulgarly  funny,  though  it  will  help  you  if  you 
are;  you  may  lack  even  that  knowledge  of  men  that 
consists  in  a  deft  instinctive  perception  of  human 
greed  and  appetite,  that  consists  indeed  in  taking 
for  granted  that  the  ears  of  a  crowd  will  be  apt 
receivers  of  the  message  of  your  own  spite,  envy, 
and  maliciousness. 

It  would  be  hard  to  conceive  of  any  single 
attribute  of  ordinary  leadership  of  which  it  could 
be  said  that  without  it  no  one  could  found  a  sect. 
The  most  blatant  demagogue  must  not  seem  silly; 
but  no  one's  silliness  need  keep  him  back  from 
originating  a  sect.  A  demagogue  must  have  a 
large  following;  but  the  smaller  sect  is  often  the 
pleasantest  to  handle,  and  is  apt  to  be  rather  pleased 
by  the  notion  that  it  is  a  "httle  flock."  The  prudent 
sectary  has  no  idea  of  a  universal  appeal.  He 
(or  she)  knows  better  than  to  aim  at  anything  which 
could  answer  to  the  needs  of  all  men  of  every  race 


APOSTOLIC  WITNESS  137 

and  tongue.  He  only  aspires  to  be  the  hero  of  a 
group:  and  It  may  be  local,  and  must  be  idiosyn- 
cratic. But  Apostollcity  would  ruin  him:  and  he 
knows  it. 

Of  course,  some  religious  Innovators  have  been 
rich  in  the  gifts  of  demagogy,  Luther  was,  Knox 
was,  Calvin  was  :  Cranmer  was  not,  but  Latimer  was. 

And  some  sect-founders,  having  some  of  the 
demagogue's  adroitness,  have  aimed  at,  and  secured, 
large  audiences  and  strong  "following."  Others, 
with  slightly  different  gifts,  have  also  known  how 
to  tickle  many  ears.  They  may  have  possessed  but 
a  shallow  intellectual  equipment;  what  they  did 
possess  was  a  shewd,  instinctive  perception  of  some 
phase  in  the  character  of  their  own  time,  Mrs. 
Eddy,  for  instance;  she  was  clearly  not  a  woman  of 
high  mental  capacity;  she  was  without  culture,  and 
her  spiritual  sense  was  obtuse.  Even  religiosity  was 
with  her  no  life-long  hobby,  which  established  habit 
had  taught  her  to  ride  with  practised  judgment. 
But  she  was  shrewd,  and  she  was  perceptive  enough 
to  be  aware  that  her  age  was  morbidly  neurotic. 
The  assimilation  of  that  meagre  discovery  was 
sufficient  for  her  purpose,  and  she  exploited  it  with 
results  that  might  amaze  even  Carlyle's  pessimistic 
estimate  of  human  wisdom. 

Christian  Science  could  not  have  been  founded  In 
the  Middle  Ages;  because,  with  many  faults  (all 
duly  insisted  upon  now)  they  were  not  in  the  least 
neurotic.  But  Mrs.  Eddy,  if  the  choice  had  been 
left  to  her,  would  have  been  far  too  sharp  to  have 


138  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

been  born  In  the  Middle  Ages.  Fate  favoured  her; 
and  she  adorned  the  age  of  patent-medicines,  the 
drug-habit,  morphomanlacs,  Nursing  Homes,  and 
health-faddists. 

Here  was  a  field  asking  for  a  general  specialist 
and  she  stepped  forward  with  a  prescription  of  en- 
gaging simplicity.  Her  success  was,  and  is, 
phenomenal;  but  how  if  Apostolicity  had  mattered 
sixpence  to  her  patients? 

There  are  worse  sects  than  hers;  but  the  same 
Incubus  would  have  smothered  them  also.  Shakers, 
Spiritualists,  Swedenborglans,  Latterday  Saints — 
and  so  on  for  as  long  as  you  like — what  on  earth 
would  have  happened  to  them  if  this  little  tedious 
note  of  Apostolicity  had  been  held,  like  a  pistol,  at 
what  the  poverty  of  the  English  language  allows  us 
to  call  the  heads  of  their  originators? 

Then  again — that  very  word  brings  us  up  against 
the  root  of  the  objection.  A  modern  sect  must 
seem  to  embody  some  sort  of  "originality,"  some- 
thing of  a  new  discovery;  and  there  is  nothing 
"original"  in  Apostolicity.  The  "doctrine  and  tradi- 
tion of  the  Apostles"  squashes  originality  In  religion: 
and  sectarian  faddism  won't  be  squashed. 

Mr.  Pecksniff's  feelings  would  not  consent  to  be 
smothered  like  the  young  princes  in  the  Tower:  the 
more  he  pressed  the  bolster  on  them,  the  more  they 
looked  round  the  corner  of  it.  So  with  the  modern 
faddists  of  religiosity:  the  Apostolic  note  would  be 
their  bolster:  the  Doctrine  and  Tradition  of  the 
Apostles  would  smother  them — if  they  would  endure 


APOSTOLIC  WITNESS  139 

its  application:  but  they  won't,  and  the  more  you 
tried  to  press  it  on  them,  the  more  would  they  gurgle 
and  choke,  and  goggle  wistfully  round  the  corner 
of  it.  For  the  -Apostolic  note  stands  for  precisely 
what  they  do  not  want:  its  function  is  that  of 
perpetual  and  incorruptible  witness  of  God's 
declared  will  in  belief  and  practice,  and  what  they 
like  is  to  express  a  new  and  half-formed  opinion  of 
their  own. 

Non  des'ideriis  hominum,  sed  voluntate  Dei  wrote 
Cardinal  York  on  his  medals  of  his  own  royalty. 
The  doctrine  and  tradition  of  the  Apostles  stands  as 
indefectible  reminder  of  the  will  of  God  in  the 
sphere  of  faith  and  morals:  and  what  the  novelty 
monger  in  religion  wants  is  no  such  reminder,  but  a 
free  hand  in  the  promulgation  of  the  desires  of  men. 
The  unity  of  the  Church  is  the  necessary  result,  and 
the  reflex  of  the  Unity  of  God,  and  is  therefore 
intolerable  to  peoples  who  have  clearly  abandoned 
the  idea  of  one  objectively  existent  God,  and  have 
really  adopted  the  idea  of  many  very  different 
subjectively  existent  Gods,  American  Gods,  gods 
adapted  to  Anglo-Saxon,  German,  or  Swedish  tastes 
in  religion;  gods  for  the  wise,  supercultured  gods, 
and  vulgar  gods. 

And  the  Apostolic  note  insists  on  the  changeless- 
ness  of  God;  whereas  the  modern  sectarian  fancy 
reflects  its  own  unstable  love  of  change  in  the  ever- 
changing  god  whose  feeble  portrait  it  is  forever 
painting  and  blurring,  smudging  and  repainting,  in 
the  thinly  disguised  effort  at  self-deification. 


IN  EXCUSE  OF  SILENCE 

IT  was,  apparently,  a  consolation  to  many  people 
suffering  from  the  shock  of  Cardinal  Newman's 
submission  to  Rome  to  say  that  he  wished  him- 
self back  again.  As  a  child  I  was  constantly  assured 
by  very  honest  persons  that  this  was  notoriously  the 
case;  and  I  cannot  believe  that  they  would  have  said 
it  unless  they  really  thought  it.  Being  a  pecuhar 
child,  for  a  Protestant,  it  caused  in  me  a  feeling  of 
antagonism  to  the  great  Oratorian;  he  had  possessed 
himself  of  a  treasure  I  envied,  and,  if  this  were 
true,  he  wanted  to  be  rid  of  it.  How  far  I  was 
convinced  that  the  report  really  was  true  I  cannot 
pretend  to  say  for  certain  now — much  more  than 
forty  years  afterwards;  but  I  doubt  if  I  was  fully 
convinced,  for  even  a  child  knows  that  people  will 
assume,  without  much  question,  that  to  be  a  fact 
which  they  desire  should  be  a  fact,  and  I  could 
perceive  that  it  was  felt  to  be  a  heavy  slur  on  the 
Church  of  England  that  Newman  should  have  found 
himself  constrained  to  leave  it.  To  believe  that  he 
had  repented  at  leisure,  that  he  was  disappointed  in 
the  Catholic  Church  and  disillusioned,  and  would 
fain  re'turn  whence  he  came,  was  a  strong  comfort  to 
those  who  had  that  belief. 

That  the  thing  should  ever  have  been  said  at  all 

140 


IN  EXCUSE  OF  SILENCE  .T41 

may  not  be  surprising;  for  Newman's  name  was  one 
around  which  report  was  apt  to  fly :  It  was  the  stormy 
petrel  of  rumour,  conjecture,  and  assertion.  And 
the  un-CatholIc  world  never  has  been  able  to  realise 
how  much  discussion  is  freely  Indulged  among 
Catholics,  how  much  individual  character  and  taste 
are  allowed  their  natural  and  legitimate  play;  it 
seems  to  be  assumed,  outside,  that  all  really  loyal 
Catholics  are  cast  In  one  mould,  made  to  one  pattern, 
and,  because  they  hold  the  same  faith,  have  also 
precisely  the  same  way  of  looking  at  everything — at 
politics,  at  devotional  methods,  at  matters  of  taste, 
at  each  and  all  of  the  thousand  questions  that  every 
day  and  week,  month  and  year,  bring  into 
consideration. 

Because,  for  Instance,  Newman  was  known  to  hold 
very  strong  views  about  university  education,  and 
that  they  were  not  the  views  of  Archbishop  Man- 
ning, it  was  promptly  assumed  that  he  was  not  in 
sympathy  with  Catholic  opinion;  and  because  it  was 
also  known  that  he  had  sympathisers,  it  was 
immediately  asserted  that  he  held  a  sort  of  sec- 
tarian position.  With  great  glee  it  was  concluded 
that  the  position  was  one  of  wistful  leanings  of  an 
Anglican  tinge — that  he  longed  to  be  home  again  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Church  for  which  his  enormous 
influence  had  done  so  much. 

It  was  a  human  feeling  enough,  and  honest 
enough,  maybe,  in  the  beginning;  but  how  any  honest 
person  who  believed  a  word  that  Newman  could  say 
or  write,  who  held  ///;;/  to  be  honest,  could  go  on 


142  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

making  the  same  assertion  after  Newman's  letter  to 
the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  it  is  very  difficult  to  under- 
stand. That  he  should  have  felt  himself  constrained 
to  make  that  disclaimer  of  regret  for  his  change 
from  Anglicanism  to  Catholicity,  must  have  seemed 
to  him  cruel.  That  there  should  be  any,  the  least, 
necessity  to  put  on  record  his  never-wavering 
gratitude  to  God  for  the  grace  that  had  brought  him 
into  the  Church  must  have  seemed  to  him  out- 
rageous. But  no  disclaimer  could  have  been  more 
simple,  solemn,  frank,  and  convincing;  no  record 
could  be  more  monumental  in  its  plain  brevity,  direct- 
ness, and  sufficiency.  It  should  have  sufficed  even 
those  who  had  never  been  at  the  pains  to  read  his 
Apologia,  or  any,  indeed,  of  the  works  he  wrote  as 
a  Catholic.  Nevertheless,  the  old  assertion  was 
still  made;  was  made,  no  doubt,  after  he  had  become 
a  Cardinal;  may,  for  aught  I  know,  be  made  now. 
Similar  assertions  will,  perhaps,  go  on  being  made 
concerning  any  convert  to  "Rome'*  whose  passing 
thither  Is  felt  to  be  a  sword-thrust  between  the  ribs 
of  Protestantism. 

It  Is  a  weak  effort  at  revenge  for  a  fact  that  must 
always  be  disconcerting:  the  fact  that  converts  to 
Rome  are  commonly  those  who  have  been  striving 
to  have  the  highest  Ideal  of  the  Church  of  England; 
who  have  been  most  eager  to  believe  her  Cathohc;" 
the  most  earnest  In  their  endeavour  to  live  a  super- 
natural life  by  grace  of  her  sacraments.  That  a 
man  who  cares  at  all  for  the  Ideal  of  a  Church 
should  come  to  confess  that  it  Is  not  to  be  found  In 


IN  EXCUSE  OF  SILENCE  143 

that  of  England;  that  he  who  thinks  It  an  essential 
of  true  and  full  Christianity  to  be  Catholic  should 
be  forced  to  the  conviction  that  Anglicanism  is  not 
Catholicity,  but  only  a  more  ornate  Protestantism; 
that  one  who  has  grasped  the  fact  that,  by  Christ's 
institution,  sacramental  life  is  necessary  to  super- 
natural life  on  earth,  should  feel  himself  constrained 
to  declare  that  the  Church  which  has  always  pos- 
sessed all  seven  sacraments  is  their  true  and  natural 
home,  and  that  five  are  really  missing  in  the  Church 
of  England — all  this  must  be  really  offensive  to  such 
as  are  still  willing  to  content  themselves  with 
Anglicanism  and  their  own  somewhat  eccentric 
position  in  it.  To  such  It  must  come  as  a  pleasant 
reprisal  to  assert,  and  believe  if  they  can,  that  he 
who  has  left  them  for  "Rome"  has  not  found  in 
Rome  what  he  went  to  seek;  that  there  he  has 
experienced,  not  the  realization  of  his  ideal,  but  its 
shattering  and  failure. 

And  there  is,  besides,  the  great,  not  particularly 
Anglican,  bulk  of  stolid  Protestantism,  heavily 
moribund,  but  not  deprived  of  the  faculty  of  speech, 
which  clings  still  to  outworn,  obsolete,  dull  mis- 
representations, and  likes  to  go  on  declaring  that 
Catholicity  is  really  bad,  immoral,  and  wicked.  In 
iheir  care  the  only  scandal  is  that  a  good  man  (no 
one  gabbles  more  of  goodness  than  they  who  think  it 
slightly  impious  to  call  anyone  good)  should  turn 
to  Rome  as  to  a  fit  and  safe  instructress  in  piety 
and  morals.  So  to  them  also  It  Is  a  satisfaction  to 
believe   that   the   deluded   creature   who   aimed   at 


144  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

goodness  and  sought  help  in  "Rome"  should  find 
himself  cozened,  and  secretly  long  for  escape  from 
its  sink  of  iniquities.  To  neither  party  does  it  seem 
to  occur  that  he  who  could  change  once  might  with 
even  greater  facility  change  again;  that  he  who  was 
able  to  cut  himself  loose  from  lifelong  associations, 
affections,  tastes,  predilections,  for  conscience' 
sake,  might  very  easily  fling  off  new  and  strange 
fetters,  abhorred  and  not  beloved,  strange,  irksome, 
and  resented,  and  be  free  again.  I  was  always 
assured  as  a  child  and  young  boy  that  Newman 
would  be  a  Protestant  again  if  he  could,  but  no  one 
mentioned  why  he  could  not.  "Ah!  he  longs  to 
come  back — if  they  would  let  him,"  was  the  formula. 

It  was  odd  that  I  never  pictured  him  immured  in 
the  dungeons  of  the  Holy  Office,  but  I  never  did. 
Perhaps  some  did.  It  is  one  of  the  finest  joys  of 
innocent  Prote.stantism  to  imagine  every  medieval 
power  of  the  Papacy  in  full  and  unrestrained 
operation,  in  spite  of  that  practical  abolition  of  the 
Papacy  in  which  they  also  complacently  believe. 

Converts  to  Catholicity  are  often  twitted  with 
their  fondness  for  writing  books  about  their  con- 
version: kt  seems  to  me  that  the  sort  of  habit  we 
have  been  noticing  provides  of  itself  a  sufficient 
excuse,  if  any  excuse  be  necessary.  It  proves  the 
naturalness  and  legitimacy  of  their  attitude,  who, 
having  made  such  a  change,  wish  to  give  a  reasonable 
account  of  it,  and  desire,  incidentally,  to  show  their 
satisfaction  in  the  change,  and  on  what  that  comfort 
and    satisfaction    is    grounded.     Nevertheless,    to 


IN  EXCUSE  OF  SILENCE  145 

write  such  books  must,  as  I  think,  be  very  difficult, 
must  even  be  very  painful,  and  only  to  be  done  at  a 
sharp  personal  cost.  To  be  done  at  all  it  must 
involve  a  self-revelation,  an  opening  of  hidden  and 
sacred  recesses  of  the  heart  and  spirit,  from  which 
we  shrink  with  a  sort  of  horror  and  repugnance 
that  is  almost  decency.  No  doubt  there  is  a 
temperament  to  which  it  is  easier  to  make  the  in- 
visible, impersonal  public  a  confidant  than  it  would 
be  to  confide  in  almost  any  individual ;  poets  can  sing 
aloud  to  all  the  world  things  they  could  never  bring 
themselves  to  say  to  a  brother  or  a  friend  in  the  most 
secure  privacy.  But  not  everyone  has  that  tempera- 
ment; to  most  of  us  the  public  is  of  all  audiences 
the  most  horrible.  And  of  all  the  things  we  may 
have  to  confide,  those  are  the  least  easy  to  speak  of 
which  concern  the  inner  motions  of  our  own  spirit, 
our  ways  of  thinking  about  God,  His  ways  of  dealing 
with  us,  spiritual  episodes,  our  own  religious  growth 
and  stagnation,  our  starts  and  standings  still,  our 
hurries  and  delays  in  all  that  inward  life  of  ours 
which  is  a  natural  secret. 

Supposing  a  man  able  to  write  at  all,  and  suppos- 
ing him  to  feel  under  some  obligation,  or  impulse, 
to  write  thus  of  his  own  intimate  matters,  it  would 
seem  to  me  that  he  would  usually  try  to  veil  himself 
under  some  shape  of  fiction.  To  his  natural 
reticence  it  would  appear  less  repugnant  to  say  what 
he  desired,  not  as  of  himself,  but  as  of  some 
imaginary  personage.  Thus  do  poets,  who,  for  the 
most  part,  confess  themselves  through  the  mouths  of 


146  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

many  third  persons.  And  thus,  1  think,  most  would 
choose  to  act  who  had  a  spiritual  tale  to  tell,  a  soul's 
story  to  embody.  It  relieves  them  of  the  incubus- 
sense  of  egoism,  and  it  leaves  them  immensely  more 
free.  For  a  man  setting  about  such  a  narration  of 
himself  in  propria  persona  must  be  appalled  by  the 
fear  of  seeming  to  make  himself  out  a  more  spiritual 
person  than  he  knows  himself  to  be — perhaps  a  sort 
of  saint,  since  the  stupid  are  apt  to  confound 
spiritual  experiences  with  sanctity,  and  he  is  -^ware 
that  stupid  readers  are  seldom  in  a  complete 
minority.  The  picture  he  has  to  present  must  be 
partly  one-sided;  it  shows  in  general  only  the 
spiritual  and  higher  side;  while  decency  forbids  him 
to  parade  the  other  side — the  lower,  the  side  of  his 
sins  and  shortcomings;  he  is  half  afraid  of  seeming, 
even  to  himself,  a  hypocrite. 

By  telling  his  story  as  of  some  other  ficti- 
tious personage,  he  is  saved  all  this  scruple  and 
bondage.  He  can  write  with  more  reality  and 
fuller  truth,  though  the  form  of  his  narration  is 
fictional,  and  a  more  genuine  revelation  is  possible. 
Neither  Rousseau  nor  Montaigne  were  morbidly 
reticent;  the  former  was  morbidly  unreticent;  the 
latter,  if  he  lacked  morbidity,  had  also  a  lack  of 
the  faculty  of  decency:  I  suspect  that  both  would 
have  left  the  world  a  revelation  of  themselves  as 
vivid  and  sincere,  more  just  and  more  complete,  if 
the  Confessions  and  the  autobiography  wrapped  up 
in  the  Essays  had  been  embodied  in  the  form  of 
fiction.     It    is    certainly    not    intended    to    put    in 


IN  EXCUSE  OF  SILENCE  147 

comparison  the  two  books  just  cited  with  those 
accounts  of  their  conversion  which  converts  have 
given  us  in  propria  persona.  The  motive  of  the  two 
former  is  utterly  opposed  to  the  motiv^e  of  the 
latter.  The  Confessions  of  Rousseau  and  the 
Essays  of  Montaigne  are  monuments  of  egoism  that 
can  be  compared  only  to  the  pyramids;  the  latter 
are  only  accused  of  egoism  by  superficial  and  un- 
sympathetic criticism;  they  are  intended  as  gifts  to 
a  cause,  are  offered  in  payment  of  a  debt;  the  speaker 
is  not  the  hero  of  the  piece,  but  its  chorus:  the  real 
hero  is  the  Catholic  Church,  and  it  is  her  justifica- 
tion that  is  really  meant,  not  the  speaker's  own. 
Each  of  these  several  works,  though  made  by  many 
men,  aim  at  one  thing — to  illustrate  the  various  and 
legitimate  attraction  of  Catholic  truth  for  minds  of 
every  cast.  If  anyone  can  do  it,  it  is  a  good  and 
useful  work,  obnoxious  to  no  sincere  objection  of 
vanity  or  self-absorption.  For  myself,  I  doubt  if  1 
could  do  it.  Many  times  I  have  been  asked  to  do 
it,  sometimes  by  direct  and  private  application,  some- 
times by  public  suggestion — as  recently  in  a  review 
of  a  book  of  mine  called  Gracechurch : 

We  are  tantalised  (says  the  reviewer)  by  his  (the 
author's)  references  to  his  religious  life  as  a  child,  and  we 
wish  he  could  have  seen  his  way  to  expand  them.  The 
making  of  a  Churchman — beginning,  as  in  this  instance,  in 
a  boy's  search  for  the  religious  help  he  felt  himself  to  need — 
is  a  subject  of  psychological  interest,  and  deserves  a  better 
place  than  the  odd  pages  modestly  assigned  to  it  in  these 
sketches. 


148  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

That  is  a  frank  and  cordial  invitation.  It 
deserves,  perhaps,  a  response  as  frank  and  cordial. 
Catholic  and  very  friendly  readers  have  urged  the 
same  thing,  as  a  duty,  on  the  author  of  the  book. 
But  I  think  them  all  mistaken.  A  man  can  only  do 
what  God  has  given  him  the  power  of  doing.  The 
power  to  strip  himself  of  the  shield  and  veil  of 
fiction,  and  still  be  frank,  sincere,  unaffected;  to 
stand,  naked  and  unashamed,  unclad  in  that  innocent 
mask  and  disguise  of  fiction,  has  been,  this  writer 
thinks,  withheld  from  him.  An  author  may  often  be 
deceived  as  to  what  he  can  do;  it  is  seldom  he  is 
wrong  in  his  convictions  as  to  what  is  quite  beyond 
him.  Did  St.  Phihp  say:  "Brothers,  let  us  make 
fools  of  ourselves  for  Jesus  Christ?"  Anyway  he 
never  made  himself  anything  in  the  least  like  a  fool. 
It  may  be  a  duty  to  do  what  is  impossible — but  only 
when  One  Voice  gives  the  command,  as  when  the 
man  whose  arm  was  withered  was  told  by  pitying 
Omnipotence  to  stretch  it  out.  To  go  beyond  one's 
impotence  may  be  to  go  beyond  one's  grace,  and  we 
need  not  attempt  it  because  a  kindly  critic,  or  eager 
friends,  urge  it  as  a  literary  or  a  religious  duty. 

Another  friendly,  and  unknown,  voice  from  over 
the  great  and  bitter  water  that  divides  this  Old 
World,  to  which  I  belong,  from  that  New  World, 
whither  I  can  adventure  only  in  a  hundred  disguises 
of  fiction,  came  to  me  of  late  begging  that  I  would 
write,  for  a  book  to  be  made  up  of  such  revelations, 
my  reasons  for  being  glad  of  being  what  I  am — like 
a  very  different  some  one — "after  all  a  child  of  the 


IN  EXCUSE  OF  SILENCE  149 

Church."  So  many  thousands  of  words  were  con- 
ceded to  me  for  the  telling — but,  ah !  how  few  they 
seemed!  I  suppose  the  world  itself,  with  all  its 
myriad  tongues,  contains  not  words  enough  for  such 
a  telling  as  that.  How  attempt  it?  How  dare  I — 
for  sheer  reverence?  Perhaps  five-and-thirty  years 
ago  I  could  have  set  down  for  any  man  to  read  the 
causes  of  my  gladness  and  gratefulness  for  being  a 
Catholic,  it  was  a  new  country  then,  and  first  impres- 
sions are  sharp  and  easily  noted:  the  traveller  in  a 
strange  land  is  alert  to  perceive  and  tell  things,  and 
true  things,  that  escape  the  attention  of  men  who 
have  always  dwelt  there.  To  another  traveller, 
following  him,  it  seems  that  he  knew  the  land  well 
— because  both  of  them  knew  it  so  little. 

On  that  October  morning,  five-and-thirty  years 
ago,  when  I  could  hardly  believe  (like  Thomas  prae 
gaiidio)  that  I  was  a  Catholic,  and  asked  some  one 
if  I  really  were  and  was  answered,  "As  truly  a  Cath- 
olic as  the  Pope,"  then,  perhaps,  I  thought  I  knew 
what  it  was  to  be  one  and  could  have  told  out,  or 
written  down  for  anyone  who  demanded  it,  what 
cause  I  had  for  all  my  exultant  joy;  why  it  was  that 
the  sun  shone  differently  on  a  new  and  gladsome 
world,  and  every  autumn  leaf  seemed  a  syllable  in  a 
chorus  of  whispering  congratulation,  and  every  little 
breath  of  crisp  October  air  was  saying,  gleefully,  in 
my  ear,  "You  are  a  Catholic — a  Catholic." 

No  doubt  I  thought  I  knew  why:  with  the  alpha- 
bet of  my  gladness  in  my  hands  I  never  suspected 
all  the  million  words  those  few  baby  letters  would 


150  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

come  to  spell.  But  after  five-and-thlrty  years! 
Eh !  how  little  was  It  that  I  knew  of  the  meanings  of 
being  a  CathoHc  at  the  beginning  of  them — how  im- 
possible to  tell  it  all  at  the  end  of  them,  when  one 
knows  so  much  more.  To  snatch  an  instance:  1 
thought,  then,  that  I  knew  how  to  hear  Mass,  and  it 
was  years  before  I  knew.  Dare  I,  for  reverence,  try 
to  write  down  in  cold  print  what  hearing  Mass  Is? 
No  doubt  he  said  truly,  In  one  sense,  who  told  me, 
"You  are  a  Catholic  as  truly  as  the  Pope."  But 
there  is  another  sense,  in  which  one  may  say  as 
truly  that  no  one  can  become  a  Catholic  in  a  minute, 
nor  in  a  year;  that  it  takes  many  years,  slow  and  rev- 
erent, patient  and  listening,  whereof  every  day  and 
week  is  a  lesson,  or  a  group  of  lessons,  wherein  one 
is  always  learning,  learning — ah!  and  unlearning — 
many  a  mistake  and  hurried  misapprehension,  so 
shall  we  die  neophytes  at  last:  but  simpler,  hum- 
bler, than  we  began. 

How  slowly,  with  what  reverence,  has  the  Church 
unfolded,  leaf  by  leaf,  all  the  trees  of  her  Divine 
teaching  that  Christ  laid  in  her  breast  an  indestruc- 
tible seed;  and  how  few  lives  are  long  enough,  pa- 
tient enough,  to  assimilate,  as  bone  of  their  bone 
and  flesh  of  their  flesh,  that  food  of  knowledge. 
All  the  great  heresiarchs  choked  themselves  with 
hurry  and  haste :  too  irreverent  to  wait  till  the  half- 
truth  they  had  snatched  at  should  be  exorcised  of  its 
half-falsehood,  with  blatant  stumbling  arrogance 
they  proclaimed  it  the  very,  truth  itself,  and  became 
liars  teaching  a  lie. 


IN  EXCUSE  OF  SILENCE  151 

And  is  this  not  why  those  who  have  been  Cath- 
olics many  years  seldom  write  of  what  they  gained 
by  conversion?  It  is  not,  maybe,  the  reason  as- 
sumed by  critics  hostile  to  the  Church.  To  them  it 
is  easier  to  say  that  they  who  are  old  converts  are 
no  longer  enamoured  of  the  mistress  whose  faults 
they  have  learned;  that  to  the  old  convert  Cathol- 
icity has  grown  stale,  and  the  beauties  of  Catholicity 
have  dwindled  down  to  paint  and  tinsel,  not  very 
moving  at  near  hand;  that  the  old  convert  keeps  his 
mouth  shut  because  he  would  not  be  let  open  it,  for 
fear  he  should  tell  too  plain  a  truth. 

But  such  a  shallow,  dull  accusation  of  critics  whom 
nothing  will  make  candid  or  friendly,  will  not  vex 
us.  The  young  lover  may  be  a  glib  sonneteer  of  his 
mistress's  eyebrow;  but  he  to  whom  she  has  been 
wedded  half  a  lifetime  writes  no  sonnets — though 
his  love  is  deeper,  stronger,  faithfuUer,  more  rever- 
ent, because  he  knows  what  once  he  only  hoped. 
No  fourteen  lines  could  knit  up  all  he  might  say; 
and,  for  reverence  of  her,  he  will  hold  his  peace,  lest 
his  stammering  eulogies  should  do  her  an  injustice. 

Our  Lady  the  Church,  whose  face  was  all  we  kn^w 
once,  is  beyond  our  praise;  and  we  shrink  from  be- 
traying our  own  inadequacy,  and  hold  our  peace; 
though  still  it  is  well  that  the  young  sonneteer  should 
sing  and  fill  the  world  with  echoes  that  keep  it 
sweeter;  his  praise  of  beauty  reminds  of  truth,  for 
his  song  means  always  this,  that  "God  is  one  and  His 
Church  is  one;  and  she  is  His  mirror,  wherein,  by 
every  shifting  light  is  caught,  and  caught  again,  some 
reflection  of  His  Supreme  Beauty." 


PAX 

I  REMEMBER  with  what  vehement,  though  nec- 
essarily silent,  protest  I  first  heard,  in  church, 
that  Easter  is  the  greatest  of  all  Festivals: 
when  one  is  seven  or  eight  years  old  the  Resurrec- 
tion Feast  cannot  appeal  like  that  of  Christ's  human 
birth.  Death  has  never  drawn  near;  the  life  we 
know  here  looks  illimitable,  and  those  whom  we  love 
seem  immortal  like  ourselves:  some  of  them  are, 
perhaps,  already  old,  most  of  them  are  much  older 
than  ourselves,  but  they  appear  to  us  to  be  fixed  in 
their  respective  ages :  they  are  big  boys  and  girls, 
young  men  and  women,  middle-aged  folk,  and  old 
people,  and  we  only  remember  them  as  they  are :  in 
our  memory  they  have  hardly  changed,  and  we  can- 
not imagine  them  changing,  least  of  all  do  we  realise 
the  change  that  will  take  some  of  them  away  from 
our  sight  altogether. 

But  we  have  a  memory  already,  an,d  it  enshrines 
chiefly  things  outside  our  own  short-shadowed  ex- 
perience :  the  Bible  stories  are  as  real  to  us  in  child- 
hood as  those  that  elder  persons  treasure,  half  wist- 
fully, all  tenderly,  out  of  their  own  lengthening  past. 
And  of  all  those  exquisite  tales  the  loveliest  is  that 
of  Bethlehem.  Perhaps  it  is  the  first  a  child  learns, 
and  it  should  be.     Once  heard,  it  brings  God  down 

IS2 


PAX  153 

to  us,  and  lifts  us  to  Him:  there  can  be  no  aloofness 
between  a  little  child  and  the  Christ  of  whom  he  first 
thinks  as  of  a  Divine  baby  in  an  adorirfg  mother's 
arms.  I  do  not  believe  a  grown  man  ever  betters 
upon  the  picture  of  Bethlehem  he  first  drew  in  his 
mind  from  his  own  mother's  tender,  simple  descrip- 
tion. It  is  one  that  simplicity  and  tenderness  can 
best  describe;  no  eloquence  or  fine  phrasing  can 
make  it  more  real,  more  human,  or  more  Divine. 
The  scene  is  homely  and  humble,  and  the  figures  of 
its  groups,  poor  folk  all  of  them,  of  no  unfamiliar 
grandeur  or  worldly  consequence.  The  poverty  of 
the  stable  has  no  bleakness,  the  starlit  night  no  chill, 
for  the  listening  child.  To  him  that  midnight  can 
never  seem  dark,  but  shining  out  of  a  past  that 
seems  but  yesterday,  sacred,  not  aloof,  with  the 
light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land.  And  learning 
that  ineffable  story  the  child  needs  not  to  be  told 
that  God  is  Love;  he  knows  It  for  always.  And  the 
Christmas  gladness  is  more  than  earthly;  he  feels 
all  the  world  to  be  the  Christ-Child's  church,  the 
wintry  fields  by  Bethlehem  its  sanctuary  and  chancel, 
the  singing  angels  its  carol-choir,  the  crib  its  altar. 
All  the  joyous  greetings  have  a  ring  like  that  of  the 
bells  that  fling  the  Christmas  message  through  the 
clear  and  frozen  air;  the  Christmas  gifts  arc  more 
than  mere  presents — they  are  sacred  and  mysterious; 
the  child  can  never  think  they  were  bought  with 
common  money  In  any  common  shop;  the  other  Child 
sent  them  from  Bethlehem,  and  they  are  holy  from 
His  fingers.     Christmas  games  are  not  like  games  of 


154  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

other  seasons;  they  are  wonderful  and  full  of  a 
strange  joyousness,  as  though  among  the  rest,  un- 
seen but  intimately  felt,  the  Child  from  Heaven  were 
playing  too.  The  very  laughter  of  Christmas  is 
only  an  echo  of  the  silver-throated  bells,  and  the 
bells  themselves  are  but  echoing  on  the  Angel's 
hymn  of  glory  and  peace. 

So  was  Christmas  to  us  long  ago,  in  the  far-away 
years  before  the  hard  noon  of  life  came  upon  us, 
before  the  world  meant  anything  worse  to  us  than 
the  lovely  word  God's  creating  whisper  spelled, 
when  sin  meant  to  us  only  a  naughtiness  that  was 
itself  innocent,  and  the  devil  was  a  terror  to  us, 
unimaginable  as  a  friend.  So  is  it  now  to  millions 
of  children  who  have  to-day  all  the  wisdom'  we  have 
unlearned  in  the  crowded  school  of  folly.  To 
children  Merry  Christmas!  Mirth  and  Christmas 
are  theirs  by  special  right  of  fitness,  and  happiest 
is  our  own  Christmas  when  we  can  help  to  make 
theirs  all  that  we  remember  ours  to  have  been  once. 
A  season  of  peculiar  unselfishness,  our  best  hope  of 
finding  it  still  happy  ourselves  must  lie  in  the 
endeavour  to  make  it  so  to  others.  To  try  in.  later 
life  doggedly  to  reconstruct  what  is  unalterably  past 
can  yield  us  only  disappointment  and  disillusion;  he 
who  says  within  himself.  This  Christmas  shall  be  as 
the  old  ones:  good  cheer  and  jocund  doings  shall 
bring  back  the  joys  we  remember,  must  fail.  A 
world-aged  man's  Christmas  cannot  be  as  the  child's. 
Many  strive  to  forget  this,  and  their  failure  make-s 
them  bitter,  ready  to  carp  and  grumble  at  the  holy 


PAX  155 

sweet  season,  as  sweet  and  holy  still  as  when  they 
themselves  were  holy  and  sweet. 

Our  Christmas,  who  have  half  a  hundred  behind 
us,  must  be  full  of  memories,  not  impersonal  as  a 
child's,  but  strung  together  out  of  our  own  gathered 
rosary  of  experience,  joyful,  mysterious,  and 
sorrowful,  not  many  glorious.  And  the  joyful  ones, 
themselves  take  a  tinge  of  wistfulness  as  they  shine 
out  of  an  ever-lengthening  past.  We  sit  alone,  and 
unforgotten  figures  arise  to  greet  us,  smilingly,  but 
with  smiles  that  have  grown  unearthly,  for  their 
light  is  not  hence,  but  the  reflection  of  what  falls 
upon  their  faces  in  a  holy  place  where  we  are  not 
with  them. 

"The  least  gift  that  they  left  to  our  childhood  in  long  ago 

years 
Is  changed   from  a  toy  to  a  relic,  and  gazed  at  through 

crystals  of  tears." 

And  other  partings  have  come :  all  the  world's 
thickness  lies  between  brother  and  brother — one 
here,  one  keeps  his  Christmas  in  the  midsummer  of 
the  earth's  other  side,  and  quarrels  and  jealousies 
have  divided  those  who  were  dear  to  each  other 
once — one  half-grudges  the  others  new  wealth  or 
consequence,  and  one  has  outgrown  the  old  friend's 
homeliness  and  mediocrity. 

We  must  fain  think  of  the  child  that  was  once  our- 
self,  and  fain  regret  him;  but  the  cure  of  the  wounds 
we  have  put  upon  him  lies  in  the  little  hand  of  the 
other  Child;  the  scars  in  it  can  take  out  all  ours. 


156  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

Only  the  Baby  in  the  Manger  can  give  us  back  what 
we  grown  men  have  wasted.  Let  the  children,  and 
the  lonely,  gather  Him  to  their  chilled  heart,  and 
He  will  nestle  to  them;  this  thick  night  of  self- 
blurred  murk  and  freezing  will  hang  out  again  its 
leading  star,  noise  and  jostle  will  pause  to  listen 
again  for  the  carol-cry  of  glory  and  of  peace,  and 
the  poverty  of  the  sweet  stable  will  make  us  rich,  or 
heal  the  hunger  wealth  may  have  brought  us. 

The  child,  we  said,  whose  circle  Death  has  never 
touched,  is  jealous  of  Easter's  praise  for  Christmas, 
and  to  him  Easter  seems  an  age  away;  but  to  us 
elders  the  Resurrection  Feast  comes  hot-foot  on  the 
Birth  Feast,  and  is  not  its  rival,  but  its  complement; 
our  many  years  have  broken  the  ring  we  remember, 
there  are  more  gaps  now  than  links;  but  a  few  years 
more  and  Easter  will  make  it  whole  again. 

The  more  we  make  our  Christmas  a  part  of 
our  religion  the  less  can  age  steal  from  it.  It  is  a 
sad  season  only  to  them  in  whose  mind  it  is  but  a 
memory  of  outgrown  happiness — a  day  of  contrasts. 
It  Is  all  too  common  a  plaint  with  some  that  for 
them  it  is  no  time  of  mirth — an  occasion  rather  of 
poignant  reminders  hard  to  face  without  wincing. 
If  we  could  think  less  of  ourselves  and  more  of  the 
Little  Child  who  came  to  lead  us,  less  of  Christmas 
would  be  lost;  for  He  is  not  lost,  nor  anything  He 
brought.  The  more  Christian  our  Christmas  is,  the 
more  will  its  sweetness  survive  all  time's  assault: 
it  is  when  we  make  of  a  great  feast  of  our  religion 
only  a  half  pagan  wassail-day  that  it  fails  us  after 


PAX  157 

youth  is  fled.  The  Child  of  the  Manger  was  not 
to  lie  there  a  Child  for  ever,  and  the  Man  of  the 
Cross  knew  all  that  we  have  learned  of  life's  shadow, 
and  can  brighten  it  and  sweeten  it.  It  is  only  when 
we  lose  sight  of  Christmas  as  the  first  act  in  the 
drama  of  redemption  that  its  joy  seems  to  elude  us 
as  the  years  run  by.  And  it  is  because  millions  do 
forget,  that  their  Christmas  mirth  rings  hollow  and 
half-hearted,  and  to  the  sad  seems  heartless. 

On  Christmas  Day,  as  on  every  other  day,  Death 
comes  to  many  homes.  Can  mourners  feel  happy? 
Only  if  they  remember  that  the  birth  of  the  Child 
at  Bethlehem  was  the  cure  of  Death  for  ever. 

No  man  can  bring  back  the  past  or  call  childhood 
back,  merry  and  innocent;  but  the  present  is  our 
own,  and  out  of  it  we  can  make  the  future. 

A  few  more  Yules,  and,  if  we  will,  we  may  keep 
our  Christmas  with  the  Master  of  it,  and  hear  the 
same  angels  singing  who  welcomed  Him  to  churlish 
Bethlehem. 


PAGAN  YULE 

DICKENS  revelled  in  Christmas  writing  as 
he  "wallowed  naked  in  the  pathetic,"  and 
his  Christmas  writing  makes  delightful 
reading.  So  is  Bracehridge  Hall  delightful  and 
Old-fashioned  Christmas,  and  no  bit  of  writing 
could  be  more  perfect  in  its  kind  than  George  Eliot's 
Christmas  described  in  Silas  Marner.  And  there 
are  unnumbered  passages  in  other  writers  that  do 
meet  homage  to  what  Dickens  calls  the  fine  old 
season. 

And  more  than  half  the  charm  In  all  of  these  Is 
due  to  the  season  itself,  whereto  they  serve  as 
mirrors.  To  be  savoured  aright  they  must  be  read 
at  Christmas:  in  a  hot  August  afternoon  they  will 
be  scarce  more  entrancing  than  a  mince-pie.  Even 
when  enjoyed  in  season  they  suggest  to  the  adult 
reader  one  consideration:  that,  to  relish  Christmas 
thus  described,  one  had  better  be  pretty  well-off. 
One  may  even  realise  that  a  Pickwickian  Christmas 
implies  an  iron  constitution  and  an  impregnable 
digestion.  Mr.  Pickwick's  Christmas  was,  not  to 
put  too  fine  a  point  upon  it,  gluttonous;  and  if 
elderly  gentlemen  who  get  drunk  deserve  a  headache 
In  the  morning  Mr.  Pickwick  certainly  deserved  one. 

To  be  of  a  bilious  habit  is,  perhaps,  criminal:  but 

158 


PAGAN  YULE  159 

no  one  labouring  under  that  imperfection  could  have 
faced  a  Dingley  Dell  Christmas  even  with 
resignation. 

The  Christmas  of  our  dear  friend  presupposes 
a  chronic  thirst,  a  Gargantuan  appetite,  and  roaring 
spirits:  and  especially  it  implies  a  pocket  pro- 
portionate to  their  indulgence.  To  suggest  that  a 
Dickensian  Christmas  is  partly  based  on  a  cosy 
affectation  would  be  Scroogian  and  horrid.  Lots  of 
folk  are  still  young,  many  are  wealthy,  England  is 
not  yet  entirely  peopled  by  dyspeptics,  in  spite  of 
the  advertisements  of  pills  and  beans:  and  even  the 
wicked  creatures  with  middling  taxable  incomes  will 
stretch  a  point  and  spend  a  little  extra  on  Christmas 
jollities.     God  bless  them  all! 

But,  however  gladly  we  would  forget  poverty  and 
pain,  anxiety  and  lonely  sickness,  they  do  not  cease 
because  we  think  it  unseasonable  to  remember  their 
existence.  They  will  not  be  Pod-snapped  away. 
Nothing  would  have  shocked  that  immortal  and  still 
insistent  personage  more  than  to  breathe  a  mention 
of  them  in  his  ear,  or  in  that  of  the  young  person, 
at  his  well-laden  Yule-night  board.  He  would  not 
hear  of  them:  he  waved  them  aside. 

Can  we  wave  them  aside?  Can  we  make  them 
non-existent?  Have  old-age  pensions  obliterated 
them,  or  Trade  Unions,  or  any  other  substitute  for 
the  peace  of  God? 

If  not,  is  Christmas,  after  all,  an  orgy  of  the  rich? 
Are  the  poor  and  wretched  to  understand  that  their 
business  on  the  feast  is  to  be  forgotten? 


i6o  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

If  it  were  so  the  reason  would  be,  flatly,  this: 
that  Christmas  has  lost  its  Christian  meaning  and 
ossified  into  a  pagan  carnival,  A  day  of  mere 
gorging  and  extravagance  can  concern  the  poverty- 
stricken  very  little :  an  extra  glass  or  so  of  gin  on 
credit,  by  some  easy-tempered  landlord's  indulgence, 
is  about  all  tbcy  can  look  for  to  celebrate  the  day. 

And  how  suggestive  of  wealth  and  feasting  the 
Bethlehem  stable  is!  How  rich  the  Child  there, 
and  His  Mother  and  her  spouse! 

God  rest  you,  merry  gentlemen,  have  a  thought 
of  that  Child,  poor  no  longer,  and  help  the  poor 
children  and  their  much  poorer  parents.  Was 
Dives  a  disreputable  person?  What  harm  did  he, 
except  that,  while  he  ate  pleasantly,  there  was  unfed 
Lazarus  at  his  gate  ?  Did  he  bid  the  wretch  starve  ? 
Had  he  defrauded  or  impoverished  him? 

Nay,  but  though  every  Dives  in  all  England 
should  forget  the  empty  bellies,  through  solicitude 
for  his  own,  over-weighted  and  outraged,  yet  will 
not  Christ.  It  is  not  the  rich  man's  festival:  it  is 
only  his  extravagant  opportunity.  The  pauper 
Child,  in  the  chill  stable,  it  is  His  feast,  and  His 
gifts  are  for  all:  only  they  are  pushed  aside  and 
unnoted. 

If  Christmas  in  England  were  more  Christian  its 
contrasts  would  not  make  us  gasp,  and  half-shame  us 
of  our  own  well-being.  Were  the  contrasts  so 
ghastly  in  the  old  days  before  the  dour  Reformation 
came  to  shut  the  monk's  guest-houses,  and  give  to 
the  indigent  Poor  Laws  instead? 


PAGAN  YULE  i6i 

Let  the  rich  do  what  they  can — If  they  would — to 
sweeten  the  sting  of  poverty:  let  Christ's  charity 
brood  wider  than  any  new-fangled  State  Philan- 
thropy: and  yet  there  will  be  poor,  and  sad,  and  sick. 
We  know  It  well. 

Is  there  no  cure? 

Only  one:  the  Child  Himself. 

Give  Him  back  to  the  people:  teach  Him  again. 
Cease  cheating  the  children  of  England  of  their 
knowledge  of  Him,  and  their  share  in  Him,  and  half 
the  bitterness  of  being  unwillingly  like  Him  In  his 
penury  will  be  healed.  Go  on  breeding  up 
England's  children  pagans,  and,  as  they  grow  in 
numbers,  so  will  the  huge  total  grow  of  those  who 
see  in  poverty  the  only  shame  and  evil,  the  one 
thing  Intolerable. 

Make  your  Christmas  more  and  more  heathen,  be 
less  and  less  mindful  of  Its  Christian  meaning,  and 
more  and  more  will  the  pagan  poor  hate  and  envy 
and  grudge  the  selfish,  smug  Christmas  of  the  rich. 
Shoulder  Christ  out  of  Christmas,  and  a  chill  more 
bitter  than  that  of  the  wintry  night  will  benumb  the 
hearts  of  rich  and  poor  alike.  In  Bethlehem  was 
no  room,  in  home  or  inn,  for  the  Divine  outcast; 
that,  not  the  poverty  of  the  place,  made  poignant 
the  pathos  of  the  stable.  And  less  and  less  room  for 
Him  Is  found  in  home  and  hostel  among  us:  be- 
cause His  story  Is  fast  fading  into  legend — for  how 
can  He  be  known  to  a  nation  to  whom  He  is  not 
taught?  The  children  of  England  are  stolen  from 
the  Child:  and  the  children  become  men  as  churlish 


i62  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

to  Him  as  they  of  Bethlehem,  unwitting  of  His 
presence  in  their  midst.  Let  England  go  on  thus, 
breeding  up  heathens,  and  her  ginshops  and  brothels 
will  be  full,  her  churches  empty:  the  hooligan  will 
illustrate  her  civilisation,  and  those  whose  bed,  on 
Christmas  night,  is  on  the  windy  wall  beside  the  cold 
river  will  witness  to  the  fine  State  Philanthropy  that 
serves  our  modern  world  In  place  of  the  Church's 
ancient  charity.  All  the  more  bitter  is  their  chill  for 
that  they  know  nothing  of  the  Child  who  left  Heaven 
for  the  stable:  is  it  their  fault?  How  should  they 
know,  who  may  be  taught  anything  else  but  that? 

The  Reformation  robbed  the  English  poor  of 
their  Church:  the  new  education  has  stolen  Christ 
out  of  their  lives,  and  ousted  Him  from  their  homes. 
Does  the  decorous  statesman,  listening  in  his  highly 
garnished  church,  to  the  old  tale  of  churlish 
Bethlehem,  pause  to  wonder  from  how  many  doors 
he  has  helped  to  drive  Christ  into  the  night:  how 
dire  he  has  helped  to  make  the  poverty  of  those  who 
were  poor  enough  before?  Sharp  and  biting  close 
can  be  the  want  of  the  poor  Christian:  but  how 
death-cold  is  the  penury  of  the  poor  pagan  who  has 
not  even  learned  of  hope. 


ONCE  AGAIN 

TO  hear  him  talk  you  would  say  that  Man 
was  a  self-satisfied  animal,  but  it  is  only  his 
little  way:  all  these  trumpetings  are  merely 
for  the  public.  He  remains  personally  unconvinced. 
In  reality  dissatisfaction  comes  easier  to  him  than 
optimism,  and  his  deepest  dissatisfaction  is 
commonly  with  his  circumstances,  of  which  he  counts 
himself  a  part.  Whoever  else  heeds  his  boastings, 
he  does  not:  they  are  only  an  uneasy  effort  at  self- 
defence,  to  prevent  his  contemporaries  from 
arriving  at  his  own  conclusions  about  himself. 

This  is  not  saying  that  he  is  really  a  humble 
creature,  for  humility  is  not  quite  the  same  thing  as 
a  sense  of  soreness  at  not  being  a  finer  fellow. 
Humility  never  thinks  of  being  fine. 

Of  course  there  are  people  whose  optimism 
begins,  like  charity  in  the  proverb,  at  home :  they  are 
impervious  to  experience  of  themselves,  and  judge 
themselves  by  their  preconceived  picture  of  them- 
selves without  any  tedious  comparisons  of  it  with 
the  original.  Outside  opinion  has  no  weight  with 
them,  and  they  are  never  dashed  by  any  failures  to 
behave  as  they  have  decided  that  they  will  behave. 
A  revelation  from  on  high  would  not  convince  them 
that  they  were  not  particularly  like  the  ideal  they 

163 


■i64  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

have  very  pleasantly  conceived  of  themselves. 
They  do  not  need  to  boast,  for  boasting  implies  a 
certain  insincerity. 

But  they  are,  I  think,  rare  birds:  most  people 
think  worse  of  themselves  than  would  appear,  and 
are  rather  pessimistic  in  their  own  regard  than  over- 
sanguine.  And  that,  perhaps,  is  why  persons  who 
have  reached  a  point  beyond  youth  shrink  instinc- 
tively from  the  making  of  good  resolutions. 

It  is  a  shallow  assumption  that  the  only  difficulty 
about  good  resolutions  is  in  the  keeping  of  them; 
that  simply  to  make  them  is  as  easy  as  admitting  that 
two  and  two  are  four.  It  may  be  easy  for  the  young, 
who  have  but  a  short  experience  of  themselves,  to 
damp  them:  who  still  suppose  that  to  resolve  and  to 
do  are  much  the  same  thing.  But  it  is  not  such  a 
comfortable  process  for  those  who  have  learned,  by 
a  hundred  trials,  how  wide  the  difference  is  between 
resolving  and  achieving.  Once  bitten,  twice  shy: 
and  every  broken  resolution  leaves  the  mark  of  its 
teeth  on  us. 

It  is  not,  again,  so  easy  to  be  insincere  with  our- 
selves as  is  commonly  pretended :  to  arrive  at  any- 
thing like  compete  and  complacent  insincerity  with 
oneself  is  a  matter  of  much  time  and  effort  and 
implies  a  habit  formed  by  Innumerable  pitiful  acts, 
and  much  more  deliberate  Intention  than  is  at  all 
usual.  The  majority  of  imperfect  human  creatures 
are  not  so  apt  to  be  Insincere  with  themselves  as  to 
be  pusillanimous;  they  are  more  liable  to  think  them- 
selves hypocritical  than  to  be  so,  and  of  having  to 


ONCE  AGAIN  165 

think  themselves  hypocrites  they  are  unduly  fearful. 
For  they  have  not  the  pluck  to  tell  themselves  (and 
the  Devil)  that  the  good  in  themselves  is  just  as 
real  as  the  bad:  perceiving  by  experience  that  the 
good  has  often  been  sent  to  the  wall  by  the  bad,  they 
are  ever-ready  to  listen  when  the  Devil  assures  them 
that  the  bad  was  all  genuine  and  the  good  a  mere 
pretence  all  along.  If  your  self-complacent, 
personal  optimist  is  a  rare  bird,  I  believe  your 
proper  hypocrite  to  be  much  rarer.  If  he  be  so 
common  as  Is  pretended  why  do  I  not  continually 
meet  him?  Ask  any  priest  and  see  if  he  will  tell 
you  that  he  comes  across  many  hypocrites.  In- 
consistency is  not  hypocrisy:  to  aim  at  a  tree-top  and 
only  hit  one  of  the  lower  boughs  may  not  be  marks- 
manship, but  It  is  not  hypocritical: 

"He  who  means  the  sky 

Shoots  higher  far  than  he  that  means  a  tree." 

It  is  a  shame  to  talk  as  though  the  poor  fellow  who 
tries  a  higher  standard  than  he  has  grace  for  Is  a 
hypocrite.  But  no  one  is  more  ready  to  condemn 
him  than  himself.  Deadly  conscious  of  a  thousand 
failures,  he  comes  to  fancy  that  a  new  attempt  would 
be  insincerity.  And  so  he  shrinks  from  making 
good  resolutions;  partly  out  of  a  timorous  dread  ot 
his  own  accusation  of  hypocrisy,  and  partly  out  of  a 
dismal  sense  of  the  labour  it  involves — a  labour  so 
often  proved  unfruitful.  For  the  labour  grows 
more  and  more.  There  is  an  exhilaration  in  the 
first  repentance :  'tis  a  novel  excursion  Into  a  region 


i66  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

full  of  promise.  But  what  broken  promise  is  so 
bitter  to  remember  as  our  own?  It  is  only  in  child- 
hood that  the  broken  promises  of  other  people  hurt 
and  surprise  us  much:  they  cease  to  scandalise  us 
as  we  grow  older :  but  our  own  promises  broken  hurt 
and  horrify  us  still.  So  we  become  afraid  of  making 
them:  and  most  of  all  afraid  of  promising  to  be  what 
we  have  never  been. 

Experientia  docety  says  a  proverb;  and  like  all 
proverbs  it  is  a  sort  of  oracle;  an,d  in  all  oracles 
there  is  apt  to  lurk  a  lie  twisted  in  and  out  of  its 
truth.  Experience  teaches;  but  does  it  always  teach 
the  bravest  truth?  What  had  experience  taught 
the  man  by  the  pool  in  Siloam  through  eight  and 
thirty  gibing  years?  That  it  was  all  no  use:  that 
to-day  must  repeat  yesterday's  failure :  he  never  Jiad 
had  anyone  help  him  to  the  healing  pool,  and  he  had 
not  yet:  others  ha,d  always  had  their  helpers,  and 
they  reached  the  saving  water,  and  would  this  time 
too.  But  he  would  not  listen  to  the  cold,  grim 
warning  of  experience.  He  would  not  heed  the  grin 
of  any  looker-on :  he  had  been  trying  to  scramble  to 
the  pool  for  thirty  and  eight  years,  and  the  only 
hope  he  had  was  to  try  and  scramble  still.  So  the 
other  Man  came  by.  Who  had  seen  each  daily  fruit- 
less effort,  and  never  scoffed  at  it,  and  the  horrible 
long  patience  was  all  forgotten.  The  frouzy  bed 
on  which  he  had  Iain  so  many  days,  wet  with 
tears  of  a  thousand  disappointments,  the  Man  bade 
him  take  up — ^and  walk.  He  never  whined  that  he 
could  not:  that  there  he  must  lie  rotting  to  the 


ONCE  AGAIN  167 

obvious  end.  The  Kindest  Voice  that  has  ever 
spoken  had  told  him  to  brush  aside  all  ghastly 
experience,  and  the  meaning  of  the  Voice  was  Hope : 
as  it  is  to  all  of  us,  who  know  not  whither  else  to 
turn  for  it.  Let  him  heed  nothing  but  the  mandate ; 
let  him  stand  up  and  look  Him  in  the  face  who  with 
such  plain  mercy  said  that  he  must  he  on  the  dull 
reminder  of  his  helplessness  no  more,  but  carry  it 
away  thence,  and  walk. 

There  is  no  other  Voice  that  can  hearten  us  weary 
with  a  hfe-time  of  daily  failures.  Our  own  falters: 
the  crooked  finger  of  our  fellows  points  at  the 
squahd  past.  Only  the  Faultless  bids  us  cease  to  sit 
glowering  in  our  faults:  "Have  they,"  He  asks  us 
gently,  "abolished  A/^?" 

Was  it  a  faultless  world  He  came  to  re-fashion? 
We  are  so  timid  that  we  hold  ourselves  as  though 
our  broken  pnomises  voided  His:  as  if  our  mean 
experience  of  ourselves  were  to  set  His  measure  of 
dealing  with  us.  Having  blurred  the  given  likeness 
of  ourselves  to  Him,  we  forget  what  He  is  like :  and 
obscure  Him  in  impatience  like  our  own,  and  fancy 
Him  pitiless  as  our  human  judges  are,  with -a  stone 
in  His  fist  for  us  like  theirs. 

So  we  shrink  back,  with  cowardly  pride,  from 
even  the  worn  effort  to  be  different :  as  if  a  new  year 
could  hold  for  us  no  hope  stouter  than  the  years 
already  wasted.  Because  our  hope  has  been  in  our- 
selves, and  we  are  so  bitter  slow  to  learn  that  it  can 
only  be  in  Him. 


GOODBYE— AND  WELCOME 

NINETEEN  HUNDRED  AND  THIR- 
TEEN  is  on  his  last  legs,  and  in  a  few  days 
they  will  have  carried  him  off,  with  all  his 
imperfections  on  his  head,  to  stand  for  judgment 
among  all  the  other  past  things  and  years. 

He  came  into  the  world  weighted  with  the  heavy 
disadvantage  of  a  bad  name:  the  people  who  bother 
themselves  and  their  neighbours  about  "luck," 
never  expected  any  good  of  him;  and  every  evil  that 
befell  any  of  us  during  his  course  was  no  matter  of 
surprise  to  them. 

"What  else  could  you  look  for  in  the  year  '13?" 
they  demanded  with  a  grizzly  complacence.  Well, 
they  may  comfort  themselves  with  the  reflection  that 
2013  can  do  them  no  harm. 

It  is  not  pretty,  anyway,  to  insult  a  death-bed, 
and  it  is  not  our  intention  now  to  repeat  the  tale  of 
offences  chargeable  by  the  human  race  against  1913  ; 
and  old  folk  are  argumentative — he  might  pretend 
that  some  of  the  trouble  was  of  man's  own  making 
as  much  as  his.  If,  he  might  urge,  you  men  would 
be  less  greedy,  less  quarrelsome,  less  vindictive,  less 
furiously  hurried,  more  deliberate,  more  patient, 
more  charitable  to  each  other,  a  little  wiser,  and  a 
little  mare  mutually  considerate  among  yourselves, 

168 


GOODBYE— AND  WELCOME  i6o 

I  might  have  been  as  lucky  a  year  as  the  rest. 
Meanwhile,  I  want  to  repent  of  my  real  faults,  and 
you  may  as  well  make  the  responses  to  my  Litany  of 
self-condemnation. 

I  suppose  the  years  also  suffer  a  particular  as  well 
as  a  general  judgment;  only  that  the  former,  in  their 
case,  is  often  crude  and  hasty,  and  is  liable  to 
considerable  revision  by  the  latter.  So,  all  we  need 
do,  is  to  call  out  to  our  unpopular  friend,  1913,  as 
he  goes,  "Goodbye — and  Welcome."  Should  he  be 
sensitive  to  innuendo  he  may  scent  one  in  the  form  of 
the  farewell,  though  we,  of  course,  mean  only,  "And 
welcome  19 14." 

When  we  watch  other  friends  leaving  us  we  know 
that  they  take  with  them  something  of  our  own — a 
bit  of  our  heart  at  least,  and  perhaps  other  trifles. 
A  parting  year  cannot  go  empty-handed  either ;  three 
score  and  ten  are  the  golden  coins  life  is  apt  to 
promise  us  for  our  spending,  and  one  of  them 
(whether  our  stock  be  really  seventy  or  no)  he 
carries  off  in  his  fist.  What  has  he  left  us  for  it? 
Nay,  what  did  we  buy  with  it?  A  better  conscience, 
a  higher  purpose;  some  translation  of  fine  purpose 
into  decent  achievement;  some  lesson  learned;  some 
ugly  knowledge  unlearned;  a  gentle  patience;  a 
more  patient  hope? 

There  is  only  One  who  can  answer,  and  He  will 
not — yet. 

It  is  no  wonder,  says  the  Autocrat  of  the  Break- 
fast Table,  that  when  two  men  talk  to  each  other 
they   are   so   liable   to  misunderstand — six   folk   all 


I70  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

speaking  at  once!  "Six?"  demanded,  I  think,  the 
young  man  called  John. 

"Why,  yes,"  answered  the  Autocrat  (I  quote  only 
his  substance,  out  of  a  naughty  memory) .  "Take 
Tom  and  Bill.  There's  Tom  as  Bill  thinks  he  Is, 
and  Tom  as  Tom  thinks  he  is,  and  Tom  as  God 
knows  him  to  be :  and  Bill  as  Tom  imagines  him,  and 
Bill  as  Bin  Imagines  himself,  and  Bill  as  God  knows 
he  is:  all  at  loggerheads." 

And  out  of  all  those  six,  there's  only  one  on  each 
side  that  matters.  The  world  may  think  that  you 
have  done  a  lot  In  1913,  and  you  may  think  you  have 
done  worse  than  nothing:  the  fact  does  not  He  some- 
where between  the  world  and  you,  but  up  in  heaven, 
where  God  knows. 

To  me  it  seems  a  comfortable  truth:  the  world 
is  no  pattern  of  perfection,  but  God  save  us  from 
its  judgment:  only  to  the  judgment  of  Perfection 
can  Imperfection  look  with  any  hope.  Who,  if  God 
would  suffer  it,  would  choose  that  the  final  judgment 
should  be  passed  on  himself,  by  himself?  "For 
though  our  heart  reprehend  us,  God  is  greater  than 
our  heart,  and  knoweth  all  things."  So  wrote  the 
Beloved  of  Love  itself,  echoing  something  he  had 
overheard  from  the  Heart  whereby  he  lay  that  last 
supper-night  before  the  King  put  on  His  Crown,  and 
mounted  his  bitter  throne  to  reign  in  sweetness. 

Repentance  is  our  self-function  not  judgment. 
That  is  no  more  ours  than  it  is  our  fellow-man's: 
"Neither  judge  I  myself,"  said  St.  Paul.  We  are 
know-nothings,    and   our    Hope   must   stretch    out 


GOODBYE— AND  WELCOME  171 

pleading  fingers  to  Omniscience — only  another  name 
of  His  who  called  Himself  Charity.  And  He  tells 
us  what  it  means.  "Charity  is  patient,  is  kind  .  .  . 
seeketh  not  her  own,  is  not  provoked  to  anger, 
thinketh  no  evil,  rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  endureth 
all  things.  Charity  never  falleth  away  ...  we 
know  in  part  .   .   ." 

But  Charity  is  Omniscience,  and  greater  than  our 
heart,  and  knoweth  all  things. 

Of  God's  patience  and  compassion  we  all  take 
account  when  it  is  question  of  great  sinners — has  He 
no  patience  or  compassion  for  those  who  try  not  to 
sin,  and  fail,  and  go  on  trying?  When  we  are  mad 
with  impatience  against  ourselves,  and  our  failures 
and  sloth,  is  it  out  of  humility?  "He  who 
believeth,  let  him  not  make  haste."  Was  Isaias 
giving  a  Counsel  of  Imperfection — or  remembering 
that  we  must  go  up  step  by  step,  and  that  the  steps 
are  steep,  and  our  knees  faltering,  and  only  by  the 
Hand  of  Omnipotent  Charity  can  we  be  helped  and 
heartened  up  at  all? 

19 13  is  not  our  judge ;  only  one  of  many  witnesses. 
Another  witness  is  coming;  neither  in  his  eyes  can  we 
throw  dust;  he  comes  not  really  to  give  or  to  steal, 
but  to  watch.  He  shall  invent  nothing,  foist  up  no 
slander  against  us,  but  note  what  he  sees.  It 
depends  on  us,  and  whether  we  let  God  help  us,  or 
shoulder  Him  away  from  our  lives. 

We  need  not  too  tediously  wander  back  over  the 
dull,  stubbled  fields  of  the  dead  year  to  scan  if  there 
be,  after  all,  some  forgotten  gleanings  of  good  grain 


172  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

belonging  to  us :  God  will  do  that  for  us,  did  it  when 
we  were  not  looking.  A  father's  tenderness  does  not 
ignore  the  good  points  in  his  worst  son:  they  never 
slip  his  memory.  Eh!  What  things  God  makes 
much  of — half  a  soldier-lad's  cloak  to  make  him 
warm  in  Heaven,  Who  had  all  the  universe  of  stars 
for  the  fringe  of  His  raiment. 

"Little  Brothers,"  pleaded  the  Poor  Man  of 
Assisi,  with  a  patience  and  modesty  learnt  out  of  the 
Heart  of  the  Poor  Man  of  Nazareth,  "let  us  begin 
to  love  Jesus  Christ  a  little." 

It  is  high  time.  Where  have  we  be^n  all  these 
truant  years;  what  silly,  ugly  things  have  we  been 
teaching  ourselves  were  wise  and  fine,  outside  the 
school  where  the  humble  Master  has  been  asking, 
asking  that  the  three  and  thirty  letters  of  his 
alphabet  might  spell  for  us  the  only  word  we  need 
— Love?  Birth  and  Death,  Miracle  and  Parable, 
the  long,  silent  years  after  Bethlehem  and  before 
Calvary,  Pity  and  Patience,  Healing  and  Help,  His 
daily  toil  for  His  daily  bread,  all  the  thirty  and 
three  letters  that  m.ade  that  Life  on  earth  of  the 
Carpenter  whose  Throne  the  angels  were  bowing 
down  before  in  Heaven.  He  keeps  his  patient  eyes 
on  us,  pushing  them  to  us  this  way  and  that,  and 
bids  us  group  them  into  one  word:  what  can  they 
spell  but  Love? 

Can  the  angels  understand?  All  their  knowl- 
edge is  not  Omniscience,  and  its  light  makes  even 
their  science  cast  a  shadow;  and  all  along  they  have 


GOODBYE— AND  WELCOME  173 

been  watching  Him  and  us.  Can  they  understand 
it,  Divine  Patience  and  human  refusal?  They  saw 
the  Child  when  first  He  came  at  Bethlehem;  watched 
His  exiled  babyhood,  His  ignored  childhood;  heard 
Joseph  command,  and  saw  Him  obey;  hovered  about 
His  work,  as  He  learned  it;  listened  when  He  began 
at  last  to  teach,  and  missed  no  miracle  He  did,  up 
to  the  last  miracle  of  His  raising  Himself  from 
death.  Alas,  they  saw  us  too:  saw  our  first 
repulse  of  Him  at  Bethlehem,  hardily  maintained 
ever  since:  that  He  came  to  His  own,  and  His  own 
received  Him  not  they  knew  before  St.  John  put  it 
into  piteous  words,  and  the  world  is  His  own  as 
much  as  ever,  and  will  no  more  receive  Him  now 
than  at  first.  Can  they  fathom  it?  They  know 
who  He  is,  and  what  we  are;  and  they  have  to  stand 
by  and  watch  Him  standing,  a  beggar  for  love, 
showing  His  wounds  at  the  gate  of  the  hearts  of 
men,  outside.  Cold  was  the  night  wind  when  He 
came,  colder  and  colder  blows  the  blast  of  man's 
indifference,  in  which  mankind  itself  is  freezing  to 
death.  And  they  see  It  all;  men  huddled  and 
grovelled  at  the  feet  of  any  tyrant,  lying  and  cruel ; 
blind  with  staring  at  any  beauty  that  is  scarce  at 
pains  to  hide  its  ugliness  and  horror  behind  a  half- 
mask — but  resolute  to  defend  themselves  against  the 
King  who  will  not  call  us  servants,  but  friends,  and 
with  eyes  obstinately  shut  against  the  loveliness  of 
the  Most  Beautiful  of  the  children  of  men. 

Qua.mdiuf     How  long,  they  must  needs  cry  out, 


174  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

will  the  incomprehensible  story  last;  when  shall  God 
write  Finis  to  the  book  of  His  long  patience  and  of 
man's  thankless  insolence? 

Meanwhile  they  come  to  each  of  us,  the  escort  to 
every  man  of  another  year;  and  they  whisper,  with 
shamed  angelic  faces,  let  this  hold  your  Reparation: 
let  it  make  up  for  the  stale  failures  of  the  past,  and 
carry  through  its  length  message  after  message  of 
awakening  tenderness.  Abyssus  ahyssii^n  invocat — 
the  fathomless  deeps  of  God's  love  cry  out  to  you  to 
deepen  your  heart  for  Him :  till  at  last  you,  knowing 
that  all  your  fault  and  failure  is  known,  may  still 
gather  hope  because  you  also  can  cry: 

"But,  Lord  Thou  knowest  all  things,  Thou  know- 
est  that  I  love  thee." 


OF  CAMEL  SWALLOWING 

THE  Eighteenth  Century,  which  had  amassed 
a  good  deal  that  waa  especially  its  own  to 
leave,  apart  from  what  It  had  inherited,  be- 
queathed to  its  posterity,  among  other  things,  an  in- 
tense dislike  of  miracles.  That  dislike  was  partly 
an  heirloom,  neatly  conserved  in  Protestant  wrap- 
pings, rather  yellow  and  cracked  at  the  joints;  but 
eighteenth  century  attachment  to  Protestantism  was 
mainly  negative — it  did  not  so  much  love  Protes- 
tantism for  what  it  had  modestly  represented  itself 
to  be,  as  liked  it  for  certainly  not  being  something 
else.  Protestantism,  wherever  it  was,  had  always 
announced  itself  as  Christianity  Pure  and  Evangel- 
ical, and  the  Eighteenth  Century  was  not  partic- 
ularly fond  of  Christianity  at  all;  but,  then.  Protes- 
tantism was  obviously  not  Catholicity,  and  that  was 
everything.  In  so  far  as  Protestantism  ha.d  got  rid 
of  the  Pope,  and  of  Papal  Dogma,  it  was  truly  ad- 
mirable; in  so  far  as  it  retained  a  belief  in  Christian- 
ity, as  a  religion  implying  faith  in  Christ  as  God,  it 
had  much  to  learn  of  the  negative  kind,  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century;  and  it  did  not  obstinately  re- 
fuse to  be  taught. 

Thus,  the  heirloom  we  have  mentioned,  carefully 

175 


176  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

treasured  by  the  Eighteenth  Century,  was  handed 
on  with  a  new,  or  somewhat  enlarged,  purpose. 

The  original  and  traditional  Protestant  objection 
to  miracles  made  a  distinction;  it  had  been  largely 
due  to  the  fact  that  for  many  hundreds  of  years  the 
miracles  had  been  Catholic  miracles,  and  to  admit 
them  would  have  been  incompatible  with  the  simple 
theory  that  the  Pope  was  Antichrist.  All  the  mir- 
acles, during  all  the  ages,  in  which  the  performers 
were  compelled  to  confess  that  the  Papal  Church  had 
existed,  were  redolent  of  a  Catholic  taint;  they  had 
been  the  indiscreet  work  of  saints  indubitably  Cath- 
olic and  Papal,  or  had  been  connected  with  some 
distinctively  Catholic  doctrine,  such  as  the  belief  in 
Holy  Relics  (as  of  the  True  Cros.s,  or  the  other  in- 
struments of  the  Passion,)  and  the  belief  in  the  Real 
Presence  of  Christ  in  the  Eucharist.  If  such  mir- 
acles had  been  true,  it  would,  the  Reformers  per- 
ceived, be  difficult  to  maintain  that  the  religion  they 
had  illustrated  was  false  and  abominable  to  God. 
But  there  had  been,  said,  they,  an  earlier  age,  when 
there  was  no  Church  in  the  Papal  sense  of  it;  a  pure, 
Biblical,  unecclesiastical  age,  when  bishops  were 
merely  Presbyterian  ministers  with  large  congre- 
gations. Miracles  in  that  age  were  on  a  different 
footing;  instead  of  offensively  arguing  in  favor  of  a 
haughty  Papal  Church,  they  would  only  be  a  proof 
of  the  divine  sanctions  of  Christianity — pure  New 
Testament  Christianity.  (St.  Stephen  and  St. 
James  of  Jerusalem  were  unhappily  not  New  Tes- 
tament Christians,  as  no  part  of  the  New  Testament 


OF  CAMEL  SWALLOWING  177 

had  been  written  while  they  were  alive.)  So 
"Bible"  miracles  were  all  right,  and,  for  much  the 
same  reason,  "Ecclesiastical"  miracles  were  all 
wrong. 

The  Eighteenth  Century,  however,  was  not 
wrapped  up  in  the  New  Testament,  and  was,  in- 
deed, remarkably  disengaged  as  to  the  Divine  origin, 
basis,  and  authority  of  Christianity.  So  it  handed 
on  the  miracle-hating  heirloom  with  an  added  gusto, 
and  without  any  reservations.  For  many  ages  mir- 
acles had  done  a  pestilent  work,  in  confirming  the  be- 
lief of  a  credulous  world  In  the  supernatural  char- 
acter and  Divinely  accredited  Mission  of  the  Papal 
Church:  that  was  pitiable  and  shocking.  But  to  re- 
tain belief  in  any  miracles,  even  though  reported  in 
the  New  Testament,  would  only  tend  to  maintain 
the  hideous  shackles  of  "superstition,"  that  is,  of  the 
foolish  idea  that  Christianity  Itself  was  anything 
more  than  a  growth — like  the  inimitable  British  Con- 
stitution; that  It  was,  in  fact,  a  supernatural  religion, 
with  a  supernatural  origin,  a  Divine  Founder,  a  Di- 
vine Revelation,  and  a  Divine  (Instead  of  a  merely 
political,  ethical  and  utilitarian)  Authority  and  Mis- 
sion. The  strong  and  determined  preoccupation  of 
the  Eighteenth  Century  was  to  escape  altogether 
from  the  incubus  of  the  supernatural;  religion  could 
only  be  tolerated  as  a  Department  of  State,  like  the 
Lunacy  Board,  and  few  things  could  be  imagined 
more  inconvenient  and  embarrassing  than  a  State 
Department  with  a  Divine  and  Irresponsible  head. 
"What  constitution,"  as  the  doctor  argued  against 


178  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

Eternal  Punishment,  "could  stand  it?"  Some 
Eighteenth  Century  legacies  have  been  lost  or  dissi- 
pated. There  are  people  who  think  the  present 
age  less  well-mannered,  and  less  addicted  to  books, 
more  frankly  superficial,  and  more  frankly  greedy. 
But  the  dislike  of  miracles  is  still  much  prized. 

The  grounds  of  a  survival  that  might  seem  ar- 
chaic, the  reasons  for  this  antipathy,  are  worth  con- 
jecturing. The  explanation  cannot  be  found  in  "the 
fact  that  miracles  are  impossible."  Nothing  is 
more  attractive  to  contemporary  taste  (so  to  speak) 
than  the  obviously  and  demonstrably  impossible. 
Write  a  novel  hanging  on  an  "impossible  fact,"  and 
it's  odd  if  it  be  ever  popular,  experto  crede;  tell  a 
story,  at  a  dinner  party,  involving  two  or  three 
physical  impossibilities,  and  you  will  be  asked  again; 
tell  another,  with  twenty  points  each  irreconcilable 
with  Euclid  or  the  late  Professor  Huxley,  and  you 
will  have  invitations  for  an  entire  season. 

It  is  not  because  the  present  age  is  overridden  by 
logic,  or  by  its  profound  realization  of,  and  rever- 
ence for,  admitted  discoveries  in  the  realm  of 
science  (where  nothing  but  what  is  physical  may 
dare  to  assert  its  existence),  that  it  can't  stand  a 
miracle.  I  dare  say  that  nine  agnostic  metaphy- 
sicians out  of  ten  would  handsomely  admit  that  a 
Jesuit  is  likely  to  be  as  good  a  logician  as  a  stock- 
broker, and  that  ninety-nine  physicists  out  of  a  hun- 
dred would  freely  confess  that  the  laws  of  physics 
are  not  even  darkly  surmised  by  that  omniscience 
classically  termed  the  Man  in  the  Street. 


OF  CAMEL  SWALLOWING  179 

But  the  man  in  the  street  is  too  wide-awake  for 
a  miracle.  Why?  Because  the  rules  of  evidence 
are  better  realized  by  him  than  they  were,  for  in- 
stance, by  St.  Thomas  Aquinas.  Not  precisely;  the 
only  rules  of  evidence  he  studies  are  those  illustrated 
in  criminal  trials,  his  greedy,  ghoulish  and  obscene 
taste  for  which  is  pandered  to  by  the  most  indecent 
press  that  ever  existed,  a  press  whose  hero  is  the 
murderer,  and  whose  heroine  is  the  adulteress. 

But  from  the  man  in  the  street  belief  in  the  su- 
pernatural has  been  sedulously  eliminated.  If  mir- 
acles were  merely  vulgar  stupidities,  or  dark  and 
foul  abnormalities,  he  would  swallow  them  vora- 
ciously; and  his  press  would  pry  his  mouth  open,  if 
he  was  not  already  agape  for  them,  that  they  might 
be  pushed  in  and  down  with  the  least  attempt  at  dis- 
cussion or  mastication. 

"Ecclesiastical"  miracles  stand  on  a  different 
base,  and  are  evidences  of  life  and  action  in  a  higher 
plane;  they  presuppose  God,  as  a  saint  presupposes 
God.  Saints  are  the  world's  fools  as  they  are  God's 
wise  men.  And  miracles  are  intolerable  to  a  society 
that  wants  to  forget  God,  because  their  occurrence 
is  an  insistence  on  Him;  they  are  an  insuperable  re- 
minder that  human  life  is  not  a  sheer  anarchy, 
though  it  may  be  in  a  wide-spread  rebellion  against 
an  Omnipotent  Master:  for  every  miracle,  by  the  es- 
sential fact  that  it  is  a  suspension  of,  or  an  exception 
to  law,  proves  the  law,  and  insists  on  the  Lawgiver 
who  alone  can  override  it.  A  miracle  is  explicable 
only  on  one  hypothesis,  that  God  exists  and  is  Om- 


i8o  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

nipotent.  So  the  man  who  Is  only  sure  of  one  thing 
— that  belief  in  God,  His  law,  and  His  omnipotent 
justice,  that  must  reward  or  punish,  Is  Inconvenient 
to  him — will  jeer  at  every  miracle  suggested,  apart 
altogether  from  the  question  of  evidence;  but  he 
will  listen,  greedily,  to  a  tale  that  is  not  explicable 
on  any  hypothesis  whatever.  To  hear  of  impossi- 
bilities delights  his  craving  for  what  is  unreal,  feeds 
his  morbid  appetite  for  the  flatly  incomprehensible, 
and  releases  him,  he  fancies,  for  a  moment  from  that 
dull  prison  of  hideous  materialism  in  which  by  his 
own  choice  he  Is  bound;  he  knows  how  vulgar  and 
sordid  his  gaol  is,  and  he  wistfully  turns  to  avenues 
of  escape  more  vulgar  and  sordid  still.  His  own  ex- 
periences have  been  mostly  all  commonplace,  and 
such  as  any  dull  and  unscrupulous  animal  might 
share  with  him;  he  devours  hungrily  the  experiences 
alleged  by  some  one  else  that  range  into  the  unfet- 
tered regions  of  blank  impossibility.  But  a  miracle  I 
That  is  not  impossible,  not  Incomprehensible  either, 
If  God  be  remembered,  and  His  Omnipotence  real- 
ized; only  he  does  not  at  all  wish  to  remember  God, 
and  Omnipotent  Justice  is  a  bleak  thing  to  contrast 
with  certain  habits  of  his  own.  Those  other  im- 
possibilities have  no  ethical  significance  whatever, 
and  the  tales  of  them  are  free  from  that  tedious 
thing,  a  moral;  that  Is  what  is  so  nice  about  them. 
If  Jones,  as  Smith  avers,  patted  Smith's  shoulder  in 
Piccadilly,  on  a  date  specified,  and  took  him  Into  a 
pastry  cook's  to  eat  ices  (of  which  he  had  ever  been 
inordinately  fond),  and  it  subsequently  transpired 


OF  CAMEL  SWALLOWING  i8i 

that  poor  Jones  was,  at  that  identical  moment,  be- 
ing himself  devoured  by  a  tiger  (also  notoriously  ad- 
dicted to  this  sort  of  refreshment)  in  Bengal — it  is 
enthrallingly  interesting,  and  does  not  in  the  least 
imply  that  Williams  need  lead  a  better  life.  There  is 
nothing  personal  about  that  camel,  and  Williams 
swallows  it  with  ease  and  pleasure,  unconcerned  by 
the  odd  appearance  it  may  lend  to  his  figure.  But  a 
miracle,  once  taken  into  the  system  would  logically 
imply  consequences:  God;  a  moral  law  not  identical 
with  that  of  the  clubs;  obedience,  or  disobedience — 
with  results.  An  inconvenient  gnat  that.  x\  reg- 
ular diet  of  camels  leads  nowhere — there's  the  beauty 
of  it — whereas  a  single  miracle  admitted  into,  and 
lodged  in,  the  system  may  demand  a  total  change 
of  life  and  habits.  All  the  Williamses,  a  "practi- 
cal" race,  members  of  the  best  clubs,  and  immovably 
resolved  to  lose  no  pleasure,  no  profit,  and  no  ad- 
vantage in  the  gift  of  World,  Flesh  or  Devil,  nat- 
urally choke  at  the  mere  sight  of  a  gnat,  and  natur- 
ally prefer  being  camel-swallowers. 


TASTE  AND  TOLERANCE 

IS  not  the  simple  truth  this — that  there  may 
profitably  be  as  many  different  sorts  of  sermons 
as  there  are  different  sorts  of  people?  And 
is  not  the  frank  recognition  of  this  very  simple  truth 
a  legitimate  encouragement  to  different  sorts  of 
preachers?  Some  who  are  bound  to  preach  are 
thoroughly  aware  that  they  are  not  what  is  called 
good  preachers;  for  the  sake  of  those  who  are  their 
listeners  they  wish  they  were ;  and  for  their  own  sake 
too,  since  it  is  human  nature  to  desire  that  any  work 
we  have  to  do  should  not  be  of  an  inferior  quality. 
Nevertheless  it  does  not  follow  that  the  defect  of 
preaching  power  they  admit  in  themselves,  and  re- 
gret, even  when  others  would  agree  with  their  self- 
criticism,  is  in  actual  reality  so  serious  a  drawback 
as  it  would  superficially  appear.  A  priest  may  be, 
as  he  humbly  conceives,  a  "bad  preacher,"  and  it  is 
likely  enough  that  there  will  be  critics  to  remark  it: 
but  there  is  more  in  a  man  than  anything  he  says, 
and  that  superiority  of  the  man  himself  to  his  words 
is  not  lost  in  the  pulpit.  Indeed,  it  is  often  to  the 
man  we  listen  rather  than  to  any  special  things  he 
may  enunciate  in  speech.  His  congregation  knows 
him  for  a  good  man,  and  it  matters  more  to  them 
than  his  phrases  or  epithets.     The  phrases  may  lack 

182 


TASTE  AND  TOLERANCE  183 

much;  they  may  be  somewhat  flat,  somewhat  out- 
worn; they  may  be  very  inadequate  to  the  nobility 
of  his  theme,  poorly  inexpressive  of  sublime  ideas, 
miserably  weak  for  the  weight  of  the  message  in- 
tended: his  use  of  epithets  may  be  even  tedious;  he 
chooses  them  awkwardly,  and  they  may  be,  and  often 
are,  calculated  rather  to  dull  the  force  of  what  he 
means  than  to  sharpen  and  illustrate  it.  But  none 
of  this  matters  so  much  as  he,  meekly  aware  of  it 
all,  though  helpless  to  better  it,  imagines:  because 
the  force  is  in  himself  that  he,  and  others  too,  miss 
in  his  words. 

He  may  dutifully  spend  all  the  hours  available  in 
preparation,  and  the  result  almost  disheartens  him: 
but  the  real  preparation  has  been  in  his  life,  and  the 
result  does  not  depend  on  his  present,  conscious  ef- 
fort. 

Of  course  a  congregation  likes  "good  sermons"; 
enjoys  them,  and  perhaps  may  remember  them  bet- 
ter than  "bad  sermons" ;  it  may  grumble  at  the  "bad' 
sermons:  nevertheless  it  profits  by  them,  by  reason 
of  the  man  himself.  For  the  only  really  bad  ser- 
mons would  be  such  as  were  insincere.  A  platitude 
in  the  pulpit  is  not  a  stale  saying,  but  a  saying  which 
is  only  words  and  has  no  conviction  at  the  back  of 
it. 

Say  a  sermon  was  "stupid."  It  does  not  follow  it 
is  bad.  It  may  be  thoroughly  earnest,  but  the 
thoughts  are,  perhaps,  dull  and  pedestrian.  A  con- 
gregation is,  as  our  old  grammars  would  say,  a 
noun  of  multitude,  and  in  a  multitude  there  are  many 


i84  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

people:  some  are  neither  dull  nor  stupid,  their 
thoughts  are  not  precisely  pedestrian:  well,  they  are 
bored.  They  are  disposed  to  think  the  sermon  be- 
neath them.  Let  them  practise  patience  and  humil- 
ity. But  in  the  congregation  are  some  dull  folk  too, 
honest  creatures,  and  the  honest  stupid  sermon  suits 
them.  It  is  their  turn  to  be  satisfied.  The  finer 
discourses,  though  just  as  honest  and  sincere,  are 
over  their  heads,  and  they  would  be  bored  too  if 
they  dared. 

A  sermon  which  is  insincere  expresses  nothing, 
however  big  the  words :  it  is  the  only  bad  sort,  and 
is  worst  of  all  for  the  preacher. 

The  fact,  not  a  recondite  one,  of  there  being  so 
many  different  kinds  of  people  in  even  an  average 
congregation  of  no  uncommon  size,  makes  part  of 
the  preacher's  difficulty.  He  would  wish  to  be  of 
use  to  all,  but  he  cannot  even  know  what  all  need, 
even  if,  knowing,  he  were  able  to  give  each  what  was 
especially  useful  to  each.  But  some  difficulties  are 
so  great  that  they  answer  themselves:  God  asks 
none  of  us  to  do  impossibilities,  and  He  asks  no 
one  to  do  two  things  at  once.  It  Is  we  ourselves, 
who  try,  if  we  be  over-solicitous,  and  unconsciously 
fussed  by  expecting  too  much  of  ourselves.  It  is  very 
right  we  should  do  our  best,  and  not  let  ourselves  off 
with  less:  but  our  best  is  not  always  equally  good, 
and  if  somebody  else's  worst  is  better  than  our  best 
it  is  not  his  fault,  and  need  not  be  our  misfortune. 
It  is  a  lucky  stone  that  kills  two  birds  at  one  throw; 
we  need  not  worry  ourselves  if  in  one  sermon  we 


TASTE  AND  TOLERANCE  185 

cannot  take  direct  aim  at  two  or  three  hundred  birds 
at  once.  After  all,  the  plain  truth,  if  we  stick  to  it, 
hits  everybody,  and  if  it  hits  many  who  have  been 
hit  before,  it  is  all  right:  the  truest  truths  are  not 
the  newest. 

Though  nine-tenths  of  a  congregation  should  go 
away  and  think  we  had  made  no  great  figure,  they 
do  not  know  all  about  it.  God  does,  and  He  does 
not  specially  care  for  majorities.  Even  if  only  one 
person  has  got  any  good  of  us,  and  we  cannot  know 
of  even  that  one,  God  is  not  necessarily  dissatisfied. 
We  do  not  read  of  flocks  of  converts  after  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  it  -ivas  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  and  God  preached  it.  After  the  Crucifixion 
itself,  after  the  Resurrection,  the  number  of  those 
He  had  converted,  in  three  and  thirty  years,  appears 
to  have  been  about  a  hundred  and  twenty.  What 
do  we  expect? 

To  return  to  the  variousness  of  hearers:  surely  it 
leaves  us  ground  for  hoping  that  all  sorts  of  sermons 
may  appeal  to  some. 

It  may  well  be  that  a  greater  number  will  prefer 
the  style  that  is  called  popular.  It  may  well  be 
admitted,  too,  that  there  is  more  than  mere 
preference:  that  the  "popular"  sermon  not  only 
pleases,  but  profits  them  best.  They  cannot  attend 
without  interest,  and  only  this  sort  awakes  their 
interest.  Their  emotions  want  stirring:  without 
emotion  they  are  dead,  and  nothing  arouses  their 
emotion  but  the  downright  "popular"  sermon.  It 
would  be  affectation  to  ignore  that  emotion  is  a  large 


1 86  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

part  of  us,  and  it  is  utterly  unfair  to  pretend  that 
there  is  anything  inferior  in  appeal  to  emotion  in 
preaching.  No  other  road  is  open  to  the  interior 
of  immense  numbers  of  people :  why  should  we  leave 
the  devil  the  key  of  the  gate?  If  we  occupy  the 
path  there  is  the  less  room  for  the  three  concupis- 
cences to  lodge  in  it. 

Let  us  be  plain-spoken:  there  are  huge  numbers 
who  can  hardly  be  awaked  from  spiritual  somnolence 
and  lethargy  except  by  a  method  of  preaching  that 
is,  not  to  put  too  fine  a  point  upon  it,  ranting.  Then 
let  those  who  can  rant.  It  is  not  the  highest  style 
of  preaching?  Never  mind,  if  it  catches  lower-class 
souls.  A  silken  net  never  caught  a  whale — his 
blubber  weighs  too  much.  To  tell  the  truth  it  is 
not  a  net  that  does  catch  him,  but  harpoons,  'and 
there  is  blood  about  while  the  harpooning  is  going 
forward. 

St.  Paul,  we  may  be  reminded,  never  ranted. 
For  my  part  I  do  not  know,  for  I  never  heard.  But 
of  one  thing  we  may  feel  quite  sure,  he  would  have 
used  any  sort  of  sermon  that  his  unfailing  spiritual 
instinct  showed  him  was  called  for  by  the  quality 
of  his  audience.  If  there  be  listeners  who  in 
spiritual  matters  are  semi-deaf,  and  you  can  shout, 
then  shout.  It  others  can  hear  only  partly  with 
their  ears,  and  have  to  listen  with  their  eyes  as  well; 
then  jump  about.  Only  shout  the  truth:  no  yelling 
will  make  two  and  two  more  than  four:  and  do  not 
lash  yourself  into  an  excitement  that  you  do  not 
feel;  if  a  genuine  fervor  jumps  you,  never  mind  how 


TASTE  AND  TOLERANCE  187 

high;  but,  for  shame's  sake,  do  not  try  and  skip 
yourself  above  yourself  or  your  sincere  emotion. 
Even  that  might  bring  you  popularity,  but  there  is 
One  among  your  audience  who  will  not  away  with  it. 
Anything  else  He  will  suffer;  slips  of  grammar, 
faults  of  "taste,"  indifferent  arguments,  two-legged 
syllogisms,  lapses  of  memory,  historical  blunders, 
controversial  insecurity,  argumenta  ad  homines 
etiam  imbecilles,  but  not  that:  nor  stage  violence; 
the  stage-hero,  denouncing  the  stage-villain  does 
not,  for  all  his  rage,  think  a  penny  the  worse  of  him: 
they  are  the  best  of  friends  and  will  sup  together 
presently.  Though  he  foam  with  rage  at  the  mouth, 
no  one  supposes  him  to  be  in  the  least  angry;  no  one 
wants  him  to  be.  His  voice  may  crack  with  the  fury 
of  his  tirade  against  the  monster  opposite,  but  it 
would  not  scandalize  us  to  hear  of  his  borrowing  ten 
shillings  from  the  monster  before  they  part  for  the 
night.  On  the  stage  neither  hero  nor  villain  speaks 
his  own  feelings,  for  himself,  but  the  feelings  of  his 
part:  the  villain  may  be  the  hero  in  to-morrow's 
play:  and  no  one  will  think  he  has  morally  degener- 
ated: the  villain  takes  the  character  of  persecuted 
merit  and  he  is  not  pretending  to  be  a  jot  better  than 
he  was  yesterday.  He  is  deceiving  nobody,  and  try- 
ing to  deceive  nobody.  Stage  acting  is  not  pretence. 
But  I  should  be  pretending  were  I  in  the  pulpit  to 
assume  a  fire  that  had  not  set  me  alight,  in  hopes  that 
it  might  enkindle  me.  The  actor  is  guilty  of  no  in- 
sincerity: he  is  only  trying  to  express  another  man's 
sentiment  with  all  the  force  he  can  summon :  I  should 


i88  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

be  guilty  of  the  worst  sort  of  insincerity  trying  to 
deceive  myself  first  that  others  might  be  deceived 
the  more  defencelessly.     N071  sic  ad  astra. 

This  is  not  saying  that  a  preacher  is  not  to  be 
warmed  by  his-  theme:  the  more  it  heats  him  the 
more  likelihood  that  others  will  be  set  on  fire.  By 
all  means  let  his  theme  warm  him:  only  let  it  be 
that:  let  the  theme  do  it,  not  himself.  It  can  only 
be  from  sincere  enthusiasm  that  a  man  is  genuinely 
carried  way.  But  there  may  be  a  pulpit  excitement 
which  is  not  the  irresistible  effect  of  genuine 
enthusiasm.  It  may  be  "effective",  but  it  effects 
nothing  for  God.  Not  by  making  folk  stare  can  we 
force  the  Spirit  of  God  to  come  down  into  them.  I 
dare  say  there  were  many  on  Carmel  who  thought 
it  a  fine  thing  when  Baal's  priests  cried  out  and 
cut  themselves  with  knives  after  their  manner,  but  it 
brought  no  fire  down  from  heaven. 

It  is  supercihous  and  pharisaic  to  decry  preaching 
because  it  is  emotional.  Is  it  pretended  that  our 
emotions  were  all  given  us  by  Satan?  He  certainly 
aims  at  getting  hold  of  them:  why  should  not  we 
pre-occupy  them  for  God?  Only  let  the  emotion  be 
honest,  and  genuine;  nothing  real  is  useless.  It  is 
not  to  the  point  to  urge  that  emotion  is  transient. 
Life  itself  is  transient.  Any  emotion  we  feel  may 
be  our  last;  it  must  be  better  that  it  should  be  an 
emotion  on  God's  side.  The  chances  are,  as  we  say 
in  common  speech,  it  will,  not  be  our  last.  Admit 
it  dies  down:  still  it  has  grooved  a  mark  on  our  soul, 
and  a  good  one.     Say  it  is  a  fire  gone  out:  it  may 


TASTE  AND  TOLERANCE  189 

well  leave  a  smouldering  spark  capable  of  re-kind- 
ling: when  a  fire  is  gone  out,  all  is  not  instantly 
cold.  Put  it  at  its  worst:  the  flame  is  extinguished, 
the  heat  is  chilled:  still  there  was  fire  and  good  fire. 
It  is  better  to  have  been  hot  on  God's  side  for  a 
time  than  to  have  been  cold  throughout.  A  thing 
which  is  not  the  very  best  must  be  far  better  than  the 
worst  of  all :  and  the  worst  thing  of  all  is  complacent, 
unmoved  spiritual  lethargy:  it  is  the  beginning  of  a 
habit  and  tends  to  be  a  fixed  one:  once  fixed,  not 
sermons  but  miracles  are  needed  to  break  up  that 
ever-thickening  ice. 

If  I  labour  this  it  is  lest  any  reader  should  think 
me  against  preaching  of  the  popular,  vehement  kind  : 
there  are  many  who  need  it:  let  us  confess  it  again, 
many  who  need  downright  "ranting,"  in  which  there 
may  be  more  sentiment  than  thought,  for  many 
have  much  less  capacity  for  thinking  than  they  have 
for  feeling:  and  no  preaching  can  confer  a  capacity 
that  is  wanting:  a  preacher,  indeed,  may  be  capable 
of  educating  dormant  capacity,  but  hardly  in  one 
sermon,  and  he  may  have  only  the  opportunity  of 
one :  he  does  what  he  can  with  the  material  on  which 
he  has  to  work  that  once. 

An  audience  may  be  thoroughly  unintellectual  and 
not  in  the  least  vulgar.  But  it  may  even  be  vulgar. 
Yet  vulgar  men  and  women  have  souls,  and  they  are 
not  a  bit  more  easy  to  save  on  that  account.  They 
also  need  preaching,  and  if  any  will  sink  himself  to 
them  it  is  a  great  work.  It  may  be  to  the  preacher 
a   great  mortification   too :  one   from  which   some- 


190  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

thing  within  him  shrinks  as  something  in  a  saint 
shrank  when  he  put  his  lips  to  a  sore.  Not  all  of 
us  could  do  what  St.  Catherine  did  at  Siena,  what 
St.  Ignatius  did:  we  are  not  saints.  But  if  a  man 
will  do  even  that  for  Christ,  it  must  bear  fruit:  it 
was  only  when  Catherine  drank  her  awful  cup  that 
the  nearly  lost  soul  of  Andrea  was  won.  And  our 
Lord  made  the  ghastly  drink  sweet. 

If  a  preacher  should  bend  his  head  to  catch  souls 
even  through  the  vulgarity  of  their  ears,  let  us  be 
content  to  confess  that  we  could  not  do  it  ourselves, 
and  stand  aside  for  him.  God  knows:  and  He  does 
not  ask  us  to  do  what  we  cannot  do.  When  we 
know  He  asks  us  to  do  something,  then  we  know 
that  we  can  do  it,  though  we  have  thought  it  a  moral 
impossibility,  or  a  physical:  it  is  a  physical  impossi- 
bility for  a  man  with  a  withered  hand  to  stretch  It 
out;  but  He  bade  the  man  stretch  It  out  and  he  did, 
else  would  he  have  carried  It  withered  to  the  grave. 

What  we  cannot  do  ourselves  let  us  not  refuse 
leave  to  others  to  do,  In  preaching  also.  There  Is 
room  for  all  sorts. 

But  just  as  in  a  congregation  there  may  be  some 
whom,  humanly  speaking,  a  preacher  can  reach  only 
by  rhetoric,  fine  rhetoric;  or  by  a  rhetoric  less  fine, 
If  more  fiery;  or  by  vehemence;  or  even  by  a  rough 
wit,  and  banter  (as  one  may  often  hear  In  a  Catholic 
country)  ;  so  there  are  others  to  whom  even  fine 
rhetoric  in  a  pulpit  is  almost  repugnant;  to  whom 
a  rhetoric  that  fails  of  being  fine,  and  is  only  fierce. 
Is    utterly    repugnant;     to     whom    any    extreme 


TASTE  AND  TOLERANCE  191 

vehemence  is  repellent  and  physically  disagreeable, 
and  well-night  intolerable;  whom  the  heat  of  some 
preachers  does  not  warm  but  chill,  with  a  quite  in- 
voluntary sense  of  shrinking,  almost  of  aversion, 
almost  of  protest.  They  are  as  unaffected  in  dis- 
liking violent  action,  noisy  declamation,  passionate 
appeal  to  emotion,  as  those  who  like  it  are  sincere  in 
admiration.  It  does  not  carry  them  off  their  legs, 
but  stiffens  their  backs.  It  does  not  engage  their 
sympathy,  but  arouses  a  perfectly  genuine  remon- 
strance, and  goes  far  to  awaken  an  antipathy  that 
they  can  no  more  help  than  they  can  help  preferring 
argument  to  assertion,  and  proof  to  argument.  It 
is  no  more  conceited  in  them  to  have  one  sort  of 
taste  than  it  is  beggarly  and  mean  in  others  to  have 
a  different  taste,  or  no  taste  at  all.  In  the  one  case 
the  popular  preacher  appeals  to  a  natural  quality  ot 
mind;  in  the  other  the  natural  quality  of  mind  is  all 
against  such  an  appeal  as  his.  They  are  not  to 
condemn  him;  but  neither  are  they  bound  in  sincerity 
to  condemn  themselves.  If  they  should  belittle  him, 
and  deny  hi?n  sincerity,  they  misbehave :  but  it  is 
not  misbehavior  in  them  not  to  like  what  the  tone  of 
their  mind  dislikes.  If  they  are  wishing  it  was  a  dif- 
ferent sort  of  preacher's  turn  to  hold  the  pulpit,  they 
are  only  yielding  to  the  same  spontaneous  feeling  as 
the  man  in  the  next  pew  who  is  rejoicing  that  he  came 
to-night  instead  of  to-morrow — to-morrow  when  the 
vault  will  resound  with  no  loud  echoes,  and  a  very 
quiet  voice  will  lay  down,  in  measured  cadence, 
positions  from  which  there  is  no  logical  escape :  when 


192  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

un-falth  will  be  beaten  with  a  cold  rod  of  iron,  and 
unbelief  be  made  to  show  itself  as  not  only  cruel 
and  unhappy  but  silly  too :  when  humanistic  excuses 
for  lax  morals  will  be  forced  to  appear  no  better 
than  vapid  sentimentality,  scrambling  on  one  knock- 
kneed  leg.  The  man  who  loves  the  popular 
preacher,  and  is  only  capable  of  him,  is  hardly  to  be 
accused  of  resisting  the  Holy  Ghost  because  he 
merely  suffers  from  distraction  while  those  calm, 
though  really  irresistible,  things  are  being  said.  It 
is  not  malice,  but  incapacity,  that  makes  him  think 
the  theologian  dull.  If  he  finds  the  preacher's  huge 
nose  queer,  he  does  not  mean  to  be  flippant:  he  Is 
only  what  he  is,  and  he  cannot  help  it.  But  neither  is 
the  other  man  resisting  the  Holy  Ghost  because  he 
cannot,  for  the  life  of  him,  understand  why  rivers  of 
sweat  should  accompany  allusion  to  the  river  of  life 
and  grace.  He  does  not  tscant  to  be  bored :  he  is  not 
assuring  himself  that  It  la  superior  to  remain  quite 
cool  while  the  preacher  is  so  frightfully  hot. 
Nevertheless  his  mind  wanders:  the  preacher  sets  It 
off:  the  preacher  starts  down  an  alley  and  the 
listener  goes  down  to  the  end  of  It,  while 
the  preacher  has  dashed  eagerly  off  into  another. 
The  preacher  gives  a  smack  at  one  objection  to 
faith,  but  by  no  means  knocks  It  down;  another  has 
leapt  Into  his  mind  and  he  must  punch  at  it;  the  lis- 
tener lingers  to  consider  how  the  first  ought  to  have 
been  flattened;  before  he  had  made  up  his  mind,  he 
sees  the  preacher  sparring  with  Indomitable  pluck  at 
a  third  objection,  with  glorious  pluck,  but  with  lam- 


TASTE  AND  TOLERANCE  193 

entable  want  of  science.  Such  agility  makes  the 
hearer  blink,  but  it  is  quite  as  fatiguing  to  try  and 
follow  as  it  is  dazzling.  "Come  along,"  cries  the 
preacher,  with  amazing  spirit.  "Any  amount  ot 
you.  The  more  the  merrier.  I've  a  black  eye  in 
my  fist  for  each  of  you."  The  courage,  the  activity, 
the  readiness  to  duck,  and  hit,  and  lunge  out  in 
another  direction,  are  all  marvellous:  but  a  black  eye 
blinds  no  one  permanently:  science  will  give  it 
against  the  hitter  for  all  his  popularity:  and  this 
unfortunate  spectator  is  on  the  side  of  science,  he 
cares  more  for  victory  than  for  a  fine  show. 

Well,  well !  What  metaphors  have  we  been  slip- 
ping into!  Misfortune  brings  us  strange  bed- 
fellows, says  the  proverb,  and  metaphor  leads  us 
into  odd  company.     I  apologize,  and  resume. 

Talking  of  metaphor;  there  may  be  hundreds  of 
profiting  listeners  to  a  rough-and-ready  preacher 
who  have  no  objection  in  life  to  a  mixed  metaphor. 
But  it  tries  the  other  sort  of  listener.  He  has  noth- 
ing to  urge  against  the  metaphor  of  shipwreck:  like 
the  young  lady  in  Pride  and  Prejudice  who  said, "The 
idea  of  the  olive-branch  perhaps  is  not  wholly  new," 
he  confesses  to  himself  that  the  shipwreck  simile  is 
rather  venerable  than  original;  but  it  is  none  the 
less  true  for  being  time-worn.  He  listens  with 
respect;  but  when  the  preacher,  hastily  remembering 
what  is  the  symbol  of  Hope,  adjures  his  hearers  to 
cling  to  the  sheet  anchor  of  Hope,  when  all  is  storm 
and  darkness,  and  all  seem  sinking,  he  cannot  help 
considering  the  buoyancy  of  anchors.     He  recognizes 


194  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

that  the  tangled  mazes  of  a  forest  brake,  with 
thorny  undergrowth,  and  light  obscured  overhead, 
not  inaptly  illustrate  muddled  doubt;  and  faith  is 
doubt's  contrary  and  cure;  but  is  "faith's  golden 
key"  suggested?  Are  keys,  even  of  gold,  of  much 
service  to  lost  and  benighted  wayfarers? 

There  are,  we  have  said,  many  in  a  given  audience 
who  can  be  reached  by  the  way  of  feehng,  and  very 
little  by  appeal  to  thought:  the  avenue  to  their 
spiritual  sense  is  the  heart,  and  not  the  head.  Why 
should  we  not  own  it,  and  act  upon  it? 

But  it  is  mainly  by  way  of  the  head  others  are 
taken.  Must  we  not  acknowledge  that  also?  No 
one  wants  to  compare  them  or  weigh  their  values. 
But  facts  are  facts:  and  one  of  these  facts  is  as 
real  and  legitimate  as  the  other.  Some  sermons  are 
little  theological  treatises,  and  some  hearers  find 
them  heavy  of  digestion:  not  every  one  can 
assimilate  the  solidest  food.  But  to  some  they  are 
the  most  welcome  kind  of  sermon,  and  not  to  priests 
only.  They  would  as  lief  have  their  bread  without 
sweetening  or  plums  in  it. 

I  heard  a  couple  of  country  folk  discuss  a  sermon 
once. 

" 'Twere  fine!"  declared  one.  "As  full  ot 
flav'rin'  and  fruit  as  a  Simnel  cake." 

"Eh,  but  I've  no  stomach  for  cake,"  confessed  the 
other.  "I  like  them  bready."  Much  more 
accomplished  judges  like  them  bready  too. 

It  is  objected  to  some  preachers  that  they  can 
only  preach  essays,  and  yet  some  people  like  essays, 


TASTE  AND  TOLERANCE  195 

and  can  remember  what  is  in  them  better  than  a 
more  "appealing"  sermon.  I  cannot  help  suspect- 
ing that  some  of  the  finest  sermons  we  have  are 
liable  to  this  reproach:  St.  Gregory's,  for  example; 
though  Cardinal  Newman's  are  more  undeniable 
instances.  They  are  better  printed  than  spoken,  it 
may  be  urged.  We,  who  only  read  them,  and  could 
not  have  heard  them,  cannot  disprove  the  assertion. 
But  it  is  certain  that  they  were  heard  eagerly,  that 
they  drew  willing  throngs,  and  were  powerfully 
effective:  they  could  not  have  been  condemned  as 
ineffective  though  they  had  not  survived  their 
original  utterance  and  come  to  be  printed.  Nor  is 
it  fair  to  urge  that  they  were  essays  by  essayists  of 
extraordinary  power,  and  therefore  cannot  be 
instanced  to  make  a  rule,  as  preachers  of  extra- 
ordinary power  can  never  be  of  ordinary  occurrence. 
Preachers  of  exceptional  force  in  the  other  class,  the 
class  most  unhke  essay  preachers,  are  of  exceptional 
occurrence  too.  We  do  not  daily  fall  in  with  the 
best  of  any  sort. 

What  is  pleaded  here  is  that  there  should  be  no 
attempt  to  form  a  rule  at  all.  That  we  should 
recognize  the  enormous  variety  of  hearers,  the  huge 
divergence  of  taste:  and  frankly  confess  that  every 
kind  of  preaching  is  legitimate  because  every  kind 
will  find  some  one  to  whom  it  appeals — even  essay 
preachers. 

The  answer  it  not  that  a  preacher  must  try  so 
to  modify  himself  as  to  appeal  to  all:  he  never  can. 
He  can  only  be  himself,  and  the  effort  to  be  several 


196  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

people  will  not  give  him  three  heads:  it  was  only 
Cerberus  who,  as  Mrs.  Malaprop  said,  was  "three 
gentlemen  at  once." 

Every  preacher  may  not  exactly  suit  every  congre- 
gation: but  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  the  preacher's 
fault,  any  more  than  it  is  the  fault  of  the  congrega- 
tion: it  is  nobody's  fault.  But  I  suspect  that  every 
genuine  preacher,  and  we  have  concern  with  no 
other,  suits  some  part  of  his  congregation — even  the 
essay  preacher.  If  the  congregation  that  does  not 
like  essays  is  the  larger  part,  it  is  certainly  their  mis- 
fortune; but,  majorities  do  so  well  for  themselves  in 
most  ways,  that,  if  the  minority  has  the  best  of  it 
in  this  instance,  no  frightful  injustice  is  done.  Even 
majorities  may  learn  patience  and  be  none  the  worse 
for  it.  If  they  also  learned  humility  it  would  be  a 
valuable  illustration  of  the  truth  that  the  age  of 
miracles  is  not  past. 

In  England  the  finest  preacher  we  have  reads  his 
sermons  from  a  manuscript,  and  I  dare  say  many 
would  say  they  were  homilies  pr  essays.  It  is 
possible  that  many  preachers  are  preferred  to  him 
by  many  hearers.  No  one  wants  to  compel  these 
many  to  hear  him  instead  of  those  they  prefer. 
But  those  who  prefer  to  hear  him  never  forget  what 
they  have  heard:  may  they  not  also  have  their 
taste?  It  is  certainly  a  strong  measure  to  read  a 
sermon  from  writing:  it  is  not  suggested  that  every 
preacher,  or  many  preachers,  should  do  it.  But  it 
might  be  suggested  that  if  some  preachers  were  to 
commit  their  sermons  to  writing  they  would  never  be 


TASTE  AND  TOLERANCE  197 

preached — and  that  would  be  a  pity,  for  they  are 
excellent  in  their  sort:  only  there  are  other  sorts. 

A  certain  Scotch  minister,  departing  from  this 
life,  bequeathed  his  sermons,  the  sermons  of  forty 
years,  to  his  parish.  After  the  funeral  it  was 
debated  in  full  sederunt  what  should  be  done  with 
them.  Some  Elders  proposed  printing,  others  con- 
curred, but  advised  selection.  Finally  one  Elder 
arose  and  pawkily  suggested  that  the  Kirk  Session 
should  "reeverently  burn  them."  I  know  one 
preacher,  at  all  events,  who  if  he  should  be  forced  to 
write  his  sermons  (and  read  them  afterward)  would 
undoubtedly  burn  them — but  I  am  not  sure  about 
"reeverently." 

It  is  urged  against  the  essay  preachers  that  they 
are  thinking  of  how  the  sermons  would  print.  The 
force  of  the  insinuation,  and  a  real  force  too  where 
the  Insinuation  is  justified,  is  that  they  are  thinking 
not  of  their  congregation  but  of  the  public.  "Every 
woman  writer,"  said  Heine,  "writes  with  one  eye  on 
herself,  and  one  eye  on  some  man,  except  Countess 
Hahn-Hahn,  who  has  only  one  eye."  If  an  essay 
preacher  composes  his  sermons  with  one  eye  on  the 
public  and  one  eye  on  himself,  he  degrades  the  office 
of  preaching:  but  he  may,  as  well  as  the  "popular" 
preacher,  have  both  eyes  on  God.  And  truth,  logic, 
and  dogma  will  always  "print." 


ANOTHER  TOLERANCE 

THERE  are,  at  the  present  moment,  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic,  a  considerable  number 
of  Catholic  writers  of  weight  whose  pens 
are  employed  on  works  in  the  various  departments 
of  theology,  dialectic,  history,  biography,  and 
fiction,  distinctly  and  unmistakably  on  the  Catholic 
side.  But  there  are  also  a  number  of  writers, 
especially  in  the  field  of  fiction,  who  are  themselves 
Catholics  but  whose  writing  is,  so  to  speak,  non- 
committal. Only  those  who  know  they  are 
Catholics  would  know  they  were  Catholics.  I  would 
like  at  once  to  make  it  clear  that,  in  so  speaking 
of  them,  there-  is  no  wish  on  my  part  to  find  fault, 
or  to  put  them  on  their  defence.  For  I  am  not 
here  speaking  of  writers  who,  in  spite  of  being 
Catholics,  write  in  a  fashion  disloyal  to  their 
religion,  or  injurious  to  it,  or  unworthy  of  it. 
Reference  is  intended  only  to  writers  who,  being 
Catholics,  have  for  their  theme  subjects  in  which, 
they  would  frankly  say,  the  question  of  religion 
does  not  accrue.  They  may  be  comic  writers, 
or  nursery-rhymesters,  writers  of  fairy-tales,  or 
novelists  of  the  light  and  airy  description.  They 
may  be  employed  in  the  production  of  short  stories 

198 


ANOTHER  TOLERANCE  199 

for  the  non-Catholic  press,  or  reviewers  of  books 
for  non-Catholic  papers. 

My  object  here  ia  not  to  belittle  them,  or  pick 
holes  in  their  way  of  earning  a  very  precarious 
livelihood,  but,  on  the  contrary,  to  put  in  a  plea  for 
them,  and  to  show,  if  I  can,  that  they  may  also  do  a 
good  work.  The  whole  question  of  literature  and 
the  press  is  one  of  the  most  important  with  which 
the  Church  has  to  concern  herself  in  the  modern 
world:  and  to  that  fact  the  rulers  of  the  Church,  not 
only  in  her  metropolis,  but  in  every  country  are 
keenly  alive. 

The  point  I  would  desire  to  accentuate  is  a  ver)' 
simple  one,  and  perhaps  may  appear  to  be  over- 
obvious  :  but  it  is  not  commonly  admitted  as  such. 
And  in  two  words,  it  is  this:  that  service  may  be 
done  to  the  good  cause  in  many  degrees  of  varying 
importance,  but  that  even  the  least  seemingly 
important  is  worth  while  and  should  not  be  decried. 

Every  Catholic  perceives  that  he  who  writes  works 
of  Catholic  theolog}',  controversy,  devotion, 
hagiology,  history,  biography,  and  such  like,  is  serv- 
ing the  Church.  So  he  is,  and  in  a  specially  direct 
and  unmistakable  fashion. 

Catholics  Recognize  that  those  are  serving  the 
Church  who  write  only  fiction  when  the  works 
produced  by  them  are,  in  fact,  works  of  Catholic 
apologetic:  novels  with  a  purpose — the  obvious 
purpose  being  the  presentment  of  the  Catholic 
Church  and  faith  in  colors  such  as  must  recommend 
both    to    the    non-Catholic    reader.     But    in    this 


200  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

particular  matter  I  venture  to  think  that  Catholics 
are  sometimes  more  eager  than  discreet.  For  I 
cannot  help  thinking  that  they  are  occasionally  dis- 
posed to  force  the  hand  of  such  writers;  and,  when 
they  succeed,  their  success  may  have  deprived  the 
writers  in  question  of  a  great  part  of  their  useful- 
ness. If  a  Catholic  writer  of  romance  or  fiction 
writes  only  for  a  Catholic  public  there  cannot  be 
too  much  Catholicity  In  his  novels.  But,  if  those 
novels  are  to  reach  the  public  outside,  there  can 
easily  be  too  much:  for  they  may  be  so  vehemently 
Catholic  that  the  non-Catholic  reader  is  frightened 
away  altogether.  He  says  to  himself:  "The  Catho- 
lic drum  is  being  beaten  too  loud  and  Insistently  by 
this  novelist.  I  have  had  enough  of  him  and  shall 
read  him  no  more."  That  is  hardly  a  point  gained. 
A  great  number  of  ears  are  lost,  that  might  have 
been  gently  educated,  and  an  attention  that  might 
have  been  attracted  to  the  Church,  her  beauty,  and 
her  truth,  can  no  more  be  engaged  by  the  writer  in 
question.  Henceforth  he  may  delight  a  Catholic 
audience,  and  win  its  hearty  applause,  but  what  he 
might  have  done,  in  drawing  toward  the  faith  them 
who  are  without  it,  he  has  forfeited  the  chance  of 
doing.  Yet  it  has  not  been  his  fault,  but  is  the  un- 
fortunate result  of  having  had  his  hand  forced. 

I  think  this  does  happen.  A  new  writer  appears 
and  there  is  something  in  his  work  that  largely 
attracts  a  public  not  given  to  the  reading  of  Catholic 
works:  yet  there  is  in  his  work  that  which  marks  it 
Catholic.     He  Is  clearly  on  the  Catholic  side:  there 


ANOTHER  TOLERANCE  201 

seems  a  special  sphere  of  service  for  him.  Men  are 
found  reading  him  who  never  read  a  Catholic 
author  before,  and  who  listen  with  interest  and 
attention  to  his  quiet  and  reasonable  presentment  of 
Catholic  ideas  and  things.  He  gives  them  a  new 
conception  of  the  sanity  and  wisdom  of  Catholic 
life  and  Catholic  customs.  What  a  good  thing  it 
would  be,  in  such  an  instance,  to  leave  well  alone. 
But  is  it  always  left  alone?  That  the  writer  is 
Catholic  is  plainly  perceived  by  Catholics  too :  they 
cannot  doubt  it.  They  plainly  recognize  a  clear 
hall-mark,  and  they  too  welcome  the  new  writer  in 
their  fashion.  But  they  cry  loudly,  "Here  is  a 
writer  whom  everybody  reads,  and  a  Catholic 
writer:  why  isn't  he  viore  Catholic?"  In  other 
words,  why  is  he  not  undisguisedly  controversial? 
Why  are  not  his  novels  sermons  on  the  Seven 
Sacraments,  or  the  Celibacy  of  the  Clergy,  or  the 
Doctrine  of  Purgatory?  And  if  he  do  not  very 
promptly  conform  to  their  ideals  of  a  Catholic 
novelist,  they  may  soon  hint  pretty  loudly  that  he  is 
not  half  a  Catholic  after  all.  The  Catholics  in  his 
books,  they  begin  to  discover,  are  more  like  human 
beings  than  angels,  and  the  non-Catholics  are  not 
monsters.  He  had  there  a  fine  opportunity  of 
bringing  in  a  conversion — and  let  it  slip:  and  there 
he  might  have  drawn  a  real  saint — and  didn't:  and 
that  scamp  would  very  easily  have  been  shown  as  a 
devil  incarnate  (without  saying  what  he  did), 
whereas  he  is  no  more  than  a  scamp,  and  had  some 
good  points  too,  which  scamps  shouldn't  have. 


202  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

One  result  is  that  the  Catholic  writer,  whom  non- 
Catholics  were  listening  to  with  some  confidence,  is 
listened  to  no  longer  by  them.  They  perceive  that 
something  has  happened  to  him.  What  has  hap- 
pened is  that  he  has,  being  human,  taken  fright,  and, 
in  dread  of  being  misunderstood  by  his  own  people, 
has  succumbed  to  the  least  capable  critics.  He 
writes  what  they  insist  upon,  but  what  those  whom 
he  might  have  gradually  gained  will  not  read  at  any 
price. 

The  perception  of  this  sort  of  fact  accounts,  in 
my  opinion,  for  the  other  fact  that  a  considerable 
number  of  writers,  who  are  really  Catholics,  and 
good  ones  too,  are  careful  to  write  in  such  wise  that 
their  Catholicity  does  not  appear  at  all.  They 
choose  a  ground  which  appears  to  them  safe :  so  long 
as  they  never  go  near  the  deeper  interests  of 
humanity  they  are  on  less  contentious  ground.  No 
one  will  complain  that  a  joke  is  not  a  Catholic  joke; 
that  a  nursery-rhyme  is  void  of  Catholic  intention; 
that  a  soliloquy  by  a  tin  soldier  leaves  out  any 
allusion  to  the  question  of  indulgences;  that  there  is 
nothing  truly  Catholic  about  a  dialogue  between  a 
Hippopotamus  and  a  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer. 
Even  a  novel  may  escape  censure  which  is  merely 
pretty,  or  merely  silly,  or  as  shallow  as  a  comic- 
opera.  And  they  do  pretty  well.  It  doesn't  matter 
a  farthing  to  anybody  whether  they  be  Catholics  or 
Confucians:  they  do  not  matter  to  anybody  at  all. 
Nobody  asks  whether  the  man  inside  the  Punch-and- 


ANOTHER  TOLERANCE  203 

Judy  show  is  a  Catholic,  or  the  lady  who  leaps 
through  paper  hoops  in  a  circus. 

But  ought  we  to  scold  them? 

If  it  be  assumed  that  they  are,  in  fact,  capable 
of  better  things:  that  there  is  a  talent  in  a  napkin: 
then  we  must  feel  regret  that  the  napkin  smothers 
it  all.  But  part  of  the  scolding  is  due  to  those  in- 
discreet but  excellent  Catholics  who  have  frightened 
them  a  little.  We  ought  all  to  be  heroic,  but  we 
are  not  all  heroes:  and  it  calls  for  a  singular  degree 
of  courage  to  face  the  strict  criticism  of  our  own 
fellow-religionists  who  are,  as  I  think,  over-ready 
to  demand  of  every  Catholic  foot  that  may  appear 
that  it  should  prove  itself  a  whole  Catholic  Hercules 
— or  get  out. 

But,  if,  on  the  other  hand,  there  be  no  serious 
talent  hidden  away,  and  these  good  Catholic  people, 
who  are  writing  to  make  folk  laugh,  or  make  chil- 
dren merry,  or  keep  alive  for  children  the  dear  old 
realm  of  fairy-land  (where  nothing  base  is  met,  only 
the  strange,  the  deliciously  impossible,  the  lovely, 
and  the  gloriously  happy) ,  or  even  to  amuse'  harm- 
lessly the  harmless  necessary  library-subscriber,  then 
I  think  these  writers  are  serving  a  good  turn. 
They  are  occupying  a  ground  that  might  else  be 
occupied  much  amiss. 

There  will  always  be-  children,  and,  though  most 
children  may  be  near'er  heaven,  than  ourselves,  they 
will  not,  commonly,  be  always  thinking  of  it.  And 
grown  people  are  often  babies:  and  some  are  not 


204  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

very  wise :  and  some  are  silly  enough :  and  many  like 
to  laugh — at  indifferent  jokes  too:  and  library- 
subscribers  will  take  out  such  novels,  and  are  not 
every  day  in  tune  for  books  that  ai-e  books  in  my 
sense  of  it;  and  young  persons  will  hanker  after 
tales  about  young  persons  much  like  themselves:  and 
weddings  and  engagements  will  never  be  quite  un- 
popular— nor  denounced  by  our  kindly  Mother,  the 
Church,  either. 

Is  it  best  that  all  this  matter  should  be  produced 
by  those  who  are  not  Catholics,  who  think  the 
Church  a  folly  or  a  nuisance,  and  religion  an  affecta- 
tion or  a  bore,  an  anachronism  or  a  fetter  on  the 
limbs  of  men  and  maidens?  Should  we  be  wise  if 
we  chased  Catholic  writers  off  this  harmless  ground, 
and  left  it  open  to  occupation  by  people  whose 
principles  are  all  against  the  Church,  whose 
sympathies  are  enlisted  on  the  opposite  side? 

We  must  have  a  real  Catholic  press,  and  there  are 
departments  of  literature  which  we  must  do  all  we 
can  to  make  strongly,  vigorously  Catholic.  The 
supply  of  Catholic,  and  deeply  Catholic,  writers,  on 
theology,  Scripture  exegesis,  hagiology,  ecclesiastical 
and  general  history,  sociology,  and  many  other  mat- 
ters— including  the  roman  a  these — must  be  kept  up. 
And,  as  we  have  already  said,  those  who  do  their 
best  to  keep  it  up  are  rendering  a  special  and  vital 
service  to  religion. 

But  there  ■will  be  the  other  sorts  of  writing  and 
one  of  two  things  may  happen  in  relation  to  them: 
cither  they  may  be  abandoned  to  writers  who  are 


ANOTHER  TOLERANCE  205 

against  the  Church,  and  perhaps  against  all  religion; 
or  the  ground  may  be  largely  occupied  by  writers 
who  are  Catholics,  and  who  will  slip  in  nothing  ad- 
verse to  faith  or  morals. 

It  seems  to  me  quite  possible  to  frighten  Catholic 
writers  off  such  ground  altogether,  or  to  cause  them 
to  feel  that  in  occupying  it  they  are  falling  into  sus- 
picion. That  would  be  the  case  if  they  were  made 
to  feel  that  their  fellow-Catholics  held  them  to  be 
failing  to  serve  the  good  cause  inasmuch  as  they 
w^ere  not  doing  more,  doing  something  more  defin- 
itely and  undeniably  on  the  Catholic  side.  Merely 
to  frighten  them  off  that  harmless  ground  would  be 
a  great  tactical  error,  and  a  great  pity:  because  their 
gaps  would  be  filled  by  people  not  harmless.  But, 
as  long  as  there  is  "a  deal  of  human  nature  in  a 
man"  it  would  in  all  likelihood  do  worse  harm;  for 
the  writing-man  must  write:  it  is  part  of  his  nature, 
as  it  is  a  part  of  other  men's  nature  that  they  must 
be  killing  things.  Nobody  complains  of  a  Catholic 
that  he  only  shoots  rabbits,  though  it  would  not  mat- 
ter at  all  to  the  Church  if  his  rabbits  were  shot  by 
an  agnostic  or  a  vehement  Protestant.  It  would 
surely  be  a  pity  to  scold  away  Catholics  who  feel 
they  can  write  such  matters  as  we  have  indicated  be- 
cause they  are  not  writing  something  more  obviously 
useful  to  religion.  For  the  chances  are  they  would 
go  on  writing  and  in  worse  company  write,  as  it 
were,  on  the  sly,  keeping  their  faith  up  their  sleeve, 
among  folk  who  sympathized  with  them  but  were 
the  reverse  of  sympathetic  with  the  Church  or  re- 


2o6  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

ligion  of  any  color.  I  believe  this  does  happen,  and 
that  where  It  happens,  evil  communications  corrupt 
good  manners,  so  that  these  originally  harmless 
persons  feel  themselves  in  opposition,  and  pick  up 
small  antagonisms,  because  of  the  antagonism  they 
have  experienced. 

If  they  were  made  to  feel  that  In  doing  no  more 
than  writing  harmlessly  In  harmless.  If  not  exalted, 
departments  of  the  press,  fiction,  and  what  not,  they 
were  doing  good,  though  humble,  service.  It  seems 
to  me  that  it  would  be  only  just  and  would  be  wise. 

Any  square  foot  of  territory  occupied  by  a  Cath- 
olic on  good  terms  with  his  religion  is  a  foot  of 
ground  lost  to  the  occupation  of  the  myriad  forces 
arrayed  against  the  Church  in  the  press  and  In  litera- 
ture. 

Is  there  sense  In  frowning  down  these  good  folk 
because  they  are  only  what  they  are? 

Even  in  a  monastery  all  are  not  abbots,  or  even 
choir-monks.  But  the  lay-brother  who  cooks  the 
dinner  is  a  religious  and  Is  helping  the  cause  of  re- 
ligion. Brother  Porter  may  be  a  garrulous  crea' 
ture,  and  fond  of  a  harmless  exchange  of  news,  and 
his  daily  talk  with  the  butcher-boy,  or  the  fish- 
monger, helps  those  persons  to  realize  the  human- 
ism of  monastic  life.  They  do  not,  perhaps,  see 
much  of  the  abbot,  or  of  Father  Placid  the  great 
preacher:  and  those  great  men  might  not  precisely 
know  how  to  interest  them.  But  Brother  Porter 
does,  and  they  acquire  a  rooted  conviction  that  mon- 
astlclsm  is  not  a  dismal  institution,  nor  an  Inhuman: 


ANOTHER  TOLERANCE  207 

and  it  does  them  a  little  good.  It  did  the  Catholic 
Church  in  England  no  disservice  that  for  years 
Punch  was  edited  by  a  Catholic.  He  did  not  con- 
vert that  organ  into  a  weekly  budget  of  controversy; 
except  that  it  was  alive  to  the  humors  of  Anglican 
Episcopacy,  it  was  not  theological.  But,  with  a 
good  Catholic  in  its  editorial  seat,  there  could  be  no 
gibes  at  things  sacred  to  us,  no  belittling  of  any- 
thing great  in  Catholic  eyes:  no  light  treatment  of 
matters  we  hold  to  be  beyond  the  scope  of  laughter. 
I  do  not  say  there  is  now — but  there  were  times  when 
all  the  wit  of  Punch  was  pitted  against  the  Pope. 

Would  it  have  been  wisdom  to  insist  that  Sir 
Francis  Burnand  should  write  only  hagiology — or 
else  be  skewered  himself? 

My  impression  is  this:  that  many  clean  and  de- 
cent, harmless,  healthy  novels,  many  inoffensive 
plays,  many  wholesome  tales  for  children,  or  for 
boys,  or  big  girls,  are  so  because  they  were  written 
by  undiscovered  Catholics  who  feel  in  themselves  no 
aptitude  for  anything  more  clearly  religious:  if  they 
were  frightened  off,  other  books  would  be  written, 
by  very  different  writers,  neither  clean,  nor  whole* 
some.     Would  that  be  a  gain  to  religion? 

Perhaps  more  encouragement  would  be  more  wise 
toward  these  lay-brothers  of  letters. 

It  is  not  ofHcial  discouragement  that  is  depre- 
cated: there  is  none.  Those  responsible  for  the 
government  of  the  Church,  either  in  her  headquar- 
ters or  elsewhere,  are  by  no  means  addicted  to  inter- 
ference.    Nor  does  the  discouragement  come  from 


2o8  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

the  clergy,  but  from  a  rather  foolish  class  of  lay 
persons,  whom  we  have,  in  another  place,  endeav- 
ored to  describe  as  the  Weaker  Brethren.  It  is  one 
of  their  peculiarities  to  be  unable  to  recognize  the 
truth  that  God  does  not  expect  the  majority  of  His 
creatures  to  do  two  things  at  once.  Archbishops 
and  bishops  do  not  call  upon  CathoHc  lads  playing 
cricket  to  demonstrate  the  Infallibility  of  the 
Church.  If  a  Catholic  writer  wrote  a  funny  skit  on 
the  Multiplication  Table  it  would  not  be  the  clergy 
who  complained  that  it  did  not,  incidentally,  confute 
the  Three  Chapters — that  would  be  for  an  erudite 
Weaker  Brother,  the  layman  afflicted  with  a  slight 
determination  of  Theology  to  the  brain. 

A  pet  accusation  of  outsiders  against  the  Church 
is  that  of  intolerance:  an  experience  of  five-and- 
thirty  years  teaches  me  that  she  is  singularly  tolerant 
and  by  no  means  addicted  to  fussy  interference,  that 
she  is  peculiarly  disinclined  to  lend  herself  to 
"cranks,"  or  frown  on  harmless  people  who  may  be 
doing  a  little  good,  in  quite  obscure  fashion,  because 
it  is  not  a  greater  good  and  more  striking  in  its 
methods.  She  is  not  given  to  quench  flame  that  only 
smokes  (your  Weaker  Brethren  never  smoke,  they 
are  above  it)  ;  and  she  is  not  willing  to  call  her 
lambs  that  skip,  in  a  lambish  manner,  black  little 
sheep.  All  that  is  the  function  of  the  Weaker 
Brethren,  the  bugbears  of  bishops,  the  skeletons  in 
the  good-natured  cupboards  of  poor  harassed, 
over-worked  priests :  the  critics  who  never  write 
anything  or  do  anything  themselves,  but  to  whom 


ANOTHER  TOLERANCE  209 

there  is  a  private,  dismal,  revelation  how  nothing 
should  be  done,  and  how  everything  should  be  writ- 
ten in  some  other  fashion. 

It  is  from  the  Weaker  Brethren  I  would  fain  de- 
fend the  Catholic  writers  who  fill  gaps  that  would 
else  be  filled  by  the  Church's  enemies,  even  though 
they  fill  them  with  nothing  greater  than  a  nursery- 
book,  or  a  "smooth  tale  mostly  of  love,"  a  poem 
something  less  than  Shakespearean,  or  a  comic  effort 
that  will  be  best  relished  by  those  whose  idea  of  hu- 
mor is  not  that  of  superior  persons.  If  eveiybody 
only  read  the  very  best  sort  of  book,  or  the  most  lit- 
erary sort  of  newspaper,  then  nobody  would  have 
any  business  to  produce  middling  books,  or  to  help 
to  produce  popular  papers.  And  they  who,  accord- 
ing to  the  measure  of  capacity  God  has  given  them, 
do  try  to  add  to  the  bulk  of  what  is  really  literature, 
are  helping  religion  in  more  ways  than  one.  But 
they  who  are  conscious  of  no  such  capacity,  but  are 
able  to  write  as  well,  in  their  less  literary  sphere  of 
operations,  as  their  non-Catholic  or  anti-Catholic 
competitors,  are  they  not,  in  helping  to  crowd  out 
such  competitors,  but  doing  a  service  and  deserving 
of  some  encouragement? 

For  my  part  I  should  be  glad  if  all  the  comic  pa- 
pers (one  need  not  read  them)  Avere  written  by 
Catholics,  and  all  the  funny  plays,  all  the  fairy-tales 
and  nursery-books,  all  the  novels  that  walk  in  hur- 
ried procession  through  the  libraries  and  cannot 
walk  too  quick  for  me,  and  all  the  other  stuff  one 
sees  people  reading  in  trains  and  road-cars,  which  is 


210  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

certainly  not  literature,  but  might  then  be  free  of 
any  graver  fault. 

The  more  Catholic  encouragement  such  writers 
meet  with  the  less  likely  are  they  really  to  need  dis- 
couragement. 

What  the  Weaker  Brethren  would  insist  upon  is 
that  all  Catholics  should  be,  like  themselves,  Su- 
perior Persons:  whereas  the  Church  only  wants  to 
lead  us  all  to  perfection,  and  that  by  many  mean 
streets:  for  all  decent  people  cannot  inhabit  the  best 
quarters  of  the  town.  The  Church's  purview  in- 
cludes noisy  places,  and  vulgar  too:  she  has  never 
proclaimed  herself  a  monopoly  of  the  genteel. 


TWO  DUTIES 

A  CERTAIN  priest  whose  Sunday  Mass  was 
always  served,  and  had  for  a  number  of 
years  been  served,  by  the  same  young  man, 
on  one  occasion  felt  compelled  to  make  him,  on 
their  return  to  the  sacristy  after  Mass  and  sermon 
were  over,  a  little  apology.  "On  this  Sunday  last 
year  I  had,"  said  he,  "the  same  subject  to  preach 
about  as  to-day.  It  was  a  different  sermon,  but  It 
had  to  deal  with  the  same  things;  they  are  so  bound 
up  with  the  day,  and  so  important.  I  am  afraid, 
though,  you  and  the  congregation  may  have  found 
the  repetition  rather  tedious." 

"Bless  you,  Father,"  the  amiable  creature  replied 
cheerfully,  "let's  hope  they  weren't  listening  both 
times."  Then,  with  a  smile  of  engaging  candor, 
'7  wasn't." 

The  blessing.  If  Irregular,  was  so  cordially  given 
that  the  priest  accepted  It  gratefully,  and  the  consol- 
ation too — as  far  as  it  went. 

On  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  I  have  written  on  the 
Apostolate  of  the  Press,  and  some  things  involved 
In  it;  but  It  is  likely  that  no  one  on  your  side  was 
listening.  And  that  is  why  I  would  venture  to  take 
my  parable  again  on  the  same  theme  with  a  different 
audience. 


212  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

That  Leo  XIII  and  the  late  Sovereign  Pontiff, 
Benedict  XV  have  in  very  weighty  words  insisted 
on  the  necessity  of  Cathohc  journals  the  Catholic 
public  is,  in  general,  everywhere  aware.  Yet  as 
George  EKot's  Uncle  Pullet  "had  a  great  natural 
faculty  for  ignorance,"  so  some  excellent  people 
seem  to  have  a  surprising  natural  capacity  for  re- 
maining ignorant  of  what  their  neighbours  have 
long  been  talking  about. 

But  as  a  whole  the  Catholic  public  is  alive  to  the 
fact  that  two  Popes  have  in  recent  years  spoken 
strongly  on  the  necessity  of  there  being  a  powerful 
and  efficient  Catholic  press.  They  quite  perceive 
the  necessity,  and  are  all  for  a  Catholic  press  equal 
in  every  way,  and  superior  in  some  ways,  to  the  huge 
non-Catholic  press,  which  is  alas!  so  often  anti- 
Catholic. 

What  they  do  not,  perhaps,  seem  to  perceive  so 
plainly  is  that  an  efficient  Press  must  be  flourishing, 
and  that,  in  order  that  it  may  flourish,  it  must  be  vig- 
orously supported.  One  necessity  of  a  strong  and 
effectual  Catholic  Press  they  do  understand — that 
able  and  willing  Catholic  writers  should  be  forth- 
coming. They  are  forthcoming  both  in  England 
and  in  America:  and,  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic, 
they  are  willing  as  well :  willing  to  forego  the  chances 
of  much  higher  pay  for  their  work  than  would  be 
theirs  if  their  services  were  not  mainly  reserved  for 
Catholic  journals  and  a  Catholic  audience.  In  thus 
reserving  their  services  Catholic  writers  exercise 
another  sort  of  self-denial,  and  a  higher:  for  every 


TWO  DUTIES  213 

writer  naturally  prefers  the  widest  audience  pos- 
sible: the  wider  the  audience  the  greater  natural 
stimulus  is  there  to  a  writer.  Just  as  empty  benches 
naturally  chill  a  preacher,  and  a  packed  church 
warms  him  as  well  as  it,  so  is  It  with  a  writer.  And 
this  is  not  merely  because  of  the  greater  chance  of 
applause  but  because  of  the  wider  hope  of  sympathy 
and  understanding.  Nevertheless,  both  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic  and  yours,  I  repeat  that  Catholic 
writers  show  themselves  perfectly  ready  to  devote 
themselves  to  the  service  of  the  Catholic  Press,  re- 
gardless of  smialler  pecuniary  rewards,  and  of  a 
smaller  audience. 

But,  whether  the  Catholic  public  is  equally  loyal 
in  support  is  another  question.  In  England  I  doubt 
if  it  is.  How  it  may  be  in  America,  I  do  not  know 
for  certain. 

This  at  all  events  is  certain:  that  the  Apostolate 
of  the  Press  depends  not  on  the  Press  itself  alone. 
However  authoritative  the  mission  of  an  apostle 
may  be,  however  unsparing  of  himself  he  may  be, 
however  noble  his  message,  and  competent  his  pres- 
entation of  it — he  must  have  hearers.  And  if 
people  will  not  listen  he  cannot  have  them. 

And  more:  even  an  apostolate  as  that  of  Apostles 
or  apostolic  men  to  unbelieving  nations,  implies  cer- 
tain material  things,  a  certain  equipment.  Bur 
such  an  apostolate  as  that  of  the  Press  demands  an 
equipment  that  is  extremely  costly.  In  this  case 
zeal  and  self-sacrifice  alone  is  not  enough.  To 
carry  on  an  able  and  efficient  Press  campaign  im- 


214  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

plies  great  expense  and  a  Catholic  Press  must  be 
crippled,  and  ultimately  silenced,  unless  it  is  main- 
tained by  an  adequate  and  efficient  response  to  meet 
that  expense. 

Catholics  are  not  always  backward  in  criticism  of 
their  own  Press :  they  expect  it  to  equal  the  general 
Press  in  literary  power  and  in  appearance  too.  The 
paper  must  not  be  flimsy;  the  type  must  not  be  un- 
sightly; the  illustrations  must  be  first-rate;  the  news 
of  the  newest,  the  reviews  stril<:ing  and  original,  and 
the  editorship  in  fact  of  the  highest  degree  of  ex- 
cellence. Well,  all  this  costs  money.  And  the 
money  can  only  be  available  if  the  Catholic  Press  be 
as  well  supported  as  the  Press  which  is  not  Cathohc. 
And  that  support  must  mainly,  and  in  the  first  in- 
stance, be  given  by  Catholics  themselv^es. 

A  Catholic  paper  may  do  worlds  of  good  by  com- 
ing into  non-Catholic  hands.  But  it  cannot  if  it 
does  not  exist,  and  its  existence  must  be  contingent 
on  the  cooperation  of  the  Catholic  Public. 

All  this  may  seem  a  mere  string  of  truisms.  But 
some  truisms  are  largely  ignored — as  that,  if  you 
spend  more  than  comes  in  to  you,  you  will  end  in 
debt  and  disaster.  If  then  the  Catholic  Press  is 
not  to  end  in  debt  and  disaster,  as  much  must  come 
into  it  as  it  pays  out  to  make  itself  and  keep  itself 
what  the  Catholic  Public  expects  it  to  be:  and  what 
comes  in  must  come  from  the  Catholic  public  chiefly. 
Does  every  Catholic  family  regularly  subscribe  to 
even  one  Catholic  paper?  Few  are  the  families, 
even  among  the  quite  poor  people  in  which  one,  and 


TWO  DUTIES  215 

often  more  than  one,  non-Catholic  paper  is  not  reg- 
ularly taken.  Some  of  these  non-Catholic  papers 
are  good  enough:  some  are  bad  enough:  and  many 
are  silly,  worthless,  and  such  as  to  require  an  anti- 
dote. Almost  all,  it  is  seriously  to  be  borne  in  mind 
by  Catholics,  are  written  by  people  who  have  no  reli- 
gious beliefs  at  all,  or  whose  religious  beliefs,  such 
as  they  are,  are  wholly  alien  from  our  own,  often 
very  inimical,  often  supercilious  and  scornful  of 
every  Catholic  ideal,  often  permeated  by  thor- 
oughly lax  morality — as  for  instance  in  regard  to 
the  sanctity  and  indissolubility  of  Christian  mar- 
riage. Even  comic  papers,  which  would  seem  to  be 
neutral  ground,  sin  very  heavily  in  this  respect:  the 
whole  point  (what  there  is  of  it)  of  half  the  jokes  in 
many  of  them  presupposes  that  marriage  itself  is  a 
joke,  though  a  bad  one:  that  conjugal  infidelity  is 
another  joke,  and  a  better  one.  And  it  is  largely- 
assumed  by  them  that  religion  is  a  bore,  a  conven- 
tion, and  a  pretence:  that  straightforward  folk  dis- 
card the  nuisance  and  the  false  pretence. 

The  presence  of  such  papers  in  Catholic  house- 
holds needs  at  least  an  antidote;  and  Catholic  pa- 
pers are  the  obvious  and  indispensable  antidote. 

The  public  atmosphere  of  life  in  almost  all  "civil- 
ized" countries  is  not  only  un-Catholic  but  irreli- 
gious. At  best  it  mostly  assumes  that  religion  has 
nothing  to  do  or  say  with  public  life:  that,  if  a  man 
chooses  to  be  religious  it  is  a  personal  idiosyncrasy, 
and  he  must  do  it  at  his  own  cost,  and  keep  it  quiet. 
Anti-Christ  may  make  all  the  noise  he  can,  but  Chris- 


2i6  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

tianlty  is  a  private  fad  and  is  not  to  annoy  tKe  public. 

And,  meanwhile,  it  is  in  this  atmosphere  that 
Catholics  are  to  live  and  breathe.  In  the  hygiene 
of  the  body  men  are  growing  more  and  more  alert 
to  the  necessity  of  precaution  and  antidote.  Where 
circumstances  imply  risk,  measures  of  self-defence 
are  adopted:  those  who  are  forced  to  encounter 
vitiated  air  are  warned  how  to  minimize  danger  of 
infection.  But  is  the  breathing  of  an  atmosphere 
inimical  to  Christian  faith  and  morality  less  hazard- 
ous? If  inevitable,  are  we  excused  from  arming 
ourselves  with  such  antidotes  and  safeguards  as  lie 
in  our  power? 

Catholics  in  business.  In  society,  and  at  play,  are 
everywhere  exposed  to  an  infective  atmosphere.  It 
is  breathed  around  them  by  the  pubhc  Press,  and  by 
the  daily  discussion  of  every  topic  they  hear  spoken 
of.  Many  who  create  it  they  perceive,  or  believe, 
to  be  clever,  intelligent,  capable  people — more  so, 
perhaps,  than  themselves.  Scientists  will  tell  us  in 
alarming  figures  the  weight  of  the  physical  atmos- 
phere upon  our  heads:  who  can  measure  the  weight 
of  this  un-Christian  atmosphere  upon  the  heads, 
hearts,  and  morals  of  our  Christian  people? 

There  are  supernatural  antidotes :  we  do  not  for- 
get them.  God's  grace  and  His  sacraments  are  still 
with  us.  But  the  reason  we  do  not  now  speak  of 
them  here  is  that  many  of  those  subjected  to  the  in- 
fluences we  mention  do  not  in  fact  make  use  of  those 
supernatural  safeguards  against  them.  Catholic 
newspapers  are  not  to  supersede  the  Church's  sacra- 


TWO  DUTIES  217 

ments,  but  to  help  powerfully  in  bringing  the  mem- 
ory of  them  and  of  all  other  means  of  grace  to  the 
minds  of  her  children. 

I  should  like  to  say  a  word  as  to  what  may  be 
called  Catholic  insulation. 

The  circumstances  of  modern  life  do  largely  in- 
sulate from  Catholic  surroundings,  Catholic  ideals, 
and  even  Catholic  memories,  large  numbers  of  our 
people.  Even  families  feel  it:  there  are  places 
where  this  or  that  Catholic  family  finds  itself,  or 
imagines  itself,  to  be  so  placed  as  to  be  without 
Catholic  society  of  its  own  calibre.  Social  inequal- 
ities exist  even  in  republics:  perhaps  nowhere  more 
than  in  republics  are  such  inequalities  more  insisted 
upon.  Where  there  are  no  titles,  and  where  theo- 
retically there  is  no  rank,  other  distinctions  are  all 
the  more  perceived  by  those  that  hav^e  them.  Many 
families  in  a  republican  state  are  well-born,  and  they 
do  not  forget  it:  others  are  intellectual,  well-educa- 
ted, cultured,  refined.  Where  there  are  not  fami- 
lies of  corresponding  birth,  breeding,  or  mental  su- 
periority they  miss  it,  and  are  not  inclined  to  merge 
their  own  real  or  supposed  advantages  altogether. 
A  Catholic  family  with  such  claims  to  superiority  in 
a  restricted  neighbourhood  where  other  Catholic 
families  of  their  own  sort  are  few  or  absent,  will 
probably  mix  largely  if  not  entirely  in  non-Catholic 
circles:  and  as  long  as  human  nature  is  what  it  is  this 
will  be  so.     This  is  one  sort  of  Catholic  insulation. 

Then  there  is  the  much  commoner  case  of  individ- 
ual  Catholics,   separated   from  home  and  family: 


2i8  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

young  men  and  young  women  who  have  gone  out 
into  the  world  to  earn  their  bread.  They  often 
live,  and  sometimes  are  almost  bound  to  live,  among 
people,  who  have  not  their  faith,  or  who  have  no 
faith  of  any  kind.  These  people  among  whom  their 
lives  are  lived  may  be  bad  and  repulsive,  or  bad  and 
by  no  means  repellent,  or  "good"  in  a  way  that  is 
not  the  Church's  way;  at  any  rate  their  influence  is 
not  on  the  Church's  side.  This  is  another  sort  of 
Catholic  insulation. 

In  both  the  insulated  Catholic  family  or  individ- 
ual is  subject  to  the  continual  erosion  of  forces 
stronger  and  more  persistent  than  could  easily  be 
exaggerated.  There  is  a  more  than  daily  influx  of 
a  tide  that  would  be  irresistible  but  for  omnipotent 
grace. 

The  counter-influence,  against  such  erosion, 
against  the  diurnal  tides  of  doubt  and  chill,  which 
might  be  effected  by  the  constant  use  of  Catholic 
papers  is  really  enormous. 

Such  insulation  tends  to  make  Catholic  house- 
ho.lds  and  Catholic  individuals  wholly  forgetful  of 
what  the  Church  is,  what  her  work  is,  what  are  her 
struggles  at  home  and  abroad,  her  interests,  her 
preoccupations,  her  daily  martyrdom,  her  noble  en- 
ergies, her  self-sacrifice,  her  vital  power,  her  undy- 
ing and  undiminished  importance,  her  intellectual 
superiority,  her  moral  preeminence,  her  Divine  au- 
thority, and  her  unabated  claims.  Catholics  thus 
isolated  are  by  the  use  of  Catholic  papers  put  in  in- 


TWO  DUTIES  219 

cvltable  and  indespensable  reminder  of  these  the 
forgotten  things. 

The  insulation  we  speak  of  tends  directly  to  a  sort 
of  selfishness  and  meanness  of  outlook.  A  nobler 
spirit  of  community  and  fellowship  is  directly  engen- 
dered and  fostered  by  reading  of  what  the  world- 
wide energies  of  the  Church  are.  The  habitual 
use  of  Catholic  papers  forbids  a  Catholic  to  assume 
that  his  Church  is  obsolete  or  behind-hand.  It 
compels  him  to  ask  himself  whether  it  be  not  he  who 
is  a  sluggard  and  faineant.  It  whets  his  zeal,  and 
stimulates  his  sympathy:  it  begets  brotherly  love 
and  an  emulation  in  good. 

In  the  United  States  there  are  published  immense 
numbers  of  Catholic  journals,  magazines,  reviews, 
and  what  not,  in  English,  German,  French,  Italian, 
and  Spanish.  They  are  not  cutting  each  other's 
throats:  there  is  not  one  too  many.  If  some  might 
be  better  than  they  are,  can  they  be  made  better 
without  more  efficient  support?  If  many  are  as 
good  as  they  could  conceivably  be,  would  not  their 
efficiency  be  immensely  increased  if  the  number  of 
their  readers  were  what  it  might  easily  be? 

The  efficiency  of  a  paper,  or  a  review,  does  not 
depend  merely  on  its  own  excellence :  the  noblest 
preacher  that  ever  stood  in  a  pulpit  would  preach 
in  vain  if  nobody  stopped  to  listen.  And  no  matter 
how  good  the  CathoHc  Press  may  be,  its  apostolate 
can  only  bear  fruit  among  those  whom  it  reaches. 

We  end,  therefore,  with  the  question  with  which 


220  DISCOURSES  AND  ESSAYS 

we  set  out — Is  the  Catholic  Press  adequately  sup- 
ported by  the  Catholic  Public?  If  not,  Is  our  duty 
done  when  an  adequate  Catholic  Press  is  provided? 
If  we  wish  to  carry  out  the  papal  mandate,  we  have 
not  only  to  supply  the  Catholic  papers  but  to  do 
all  In  our  power  to  foster  and  enlarge  the  demand 
on  which  the  supply  must  in  the  long  run  depend. 


THE   END 


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